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Pete Nester is down in Gainesville at the Tom Petty Weekend, subbing in for me as I can't be there. He's been doing a fantastic job of connecting me with the weekend via messages, video clips, and photos and he's even gone the extra mile and interviewed a few folks down there! As well as some of the artists, he caught up with some of the amazing crew that make this weekend one of the best festival experiences of the year; Lynne Ellison, Dan Spiess, and Brandon Leavitt.Sit back, relax and enjoy Pete Nester's conversation with Lynne, Dan, and Brandon!Check out the Heartwood Soundstage website here: https://heartwoodsoundstage.comDon't forget to follow me on social media, like, subscribe, and please, leave a rating if you like the show.Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetompettyprojectBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/tompettyproject.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetompettyprojectYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thetompettyprojectThreads: https://www.threads.net/@thetompettyprojectAll music, including the theme song, provided by my very best friend Randy Woods. Check him out at https://www.randywoodsband.comThe Tom Petty Project is not affiliated with the Tom Petty estate in any way and when you're looking for Tom's music, please visit the official YouTube channel first and go to tompetty.com for official merchandise.A last very special thanks to Paul Zollo. Without his book, "Conversations with Tom Petty", this podcast wouldn't be nearly as much fun to research. And further thanks to Warren Zanes for his outstanding book "Petty, the Biography".Producer: Kevin BrownExecutive Producer: Paul RobertsSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-tom-petty-project. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Craig Bandes discusses how to avoid the same pitfalls of companies he has worked with in the past and how to create a structurally sound order of operations through his experience in business and finances: “And you get to a point where you just realize that if I don’t try it, I’ll never know, and I’ll always regret it. And then you jump into it . But jumping in with more experience, I think, really increases the odds of surviving”. Craig Bandes is the CEO and co-founder of Pixelligent Technologies. He has over 25 years of experience serving as a CEO, entrepreneur, and angel investor. Additionally, he is a member of the NanoBusiness Alliance Advisory Board. In this episode, Bandes shares with host James Di Virgilio the importance of having a business background before entering the business world, how he’s saved a company from bankruptcy, and the next steps for said company in terms of workplace diversity, globalization, and sustainability. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade — a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. Starting in running your own company — it’s not for everyone. For those who have done it, it can be exhilarating, exhausting, and easily the hardest thing they’ve ever done. We decided to go out and talk to some of those people and find out what they’ve learned, what they’d repeat, what they’ll never do again, or hear stories from their first year, then from the period when they realized they’re going to survive and how they intend to position their companies for the future. We’ll find out what a CEO’s normal day is like, how they build and manage their teams, what it’s done to their personal lives. And finally, when is it time to move on? Join us for CEO101 — a limited series of deep looks at people who are their own boss — for better or for worse. James Di Virgilio: 0:54 We’re talking with Craig Bandes, the president and CEO of Pixelligent Technologies. It’s a nanotechnology company that does a whole lot of fascinating things that Craig is going to tell us all about. But first, Craig, tell us about your background as a leader. You’ve done a lot of things — both co-founding companies, as well as being brought in to be a CEO. Craig Bandes: 1:14 Yeah. Well, great. Thanks for inviting me to join today. So, you know , I think it’s , it’s nothing that I think you can prepare for without being in the role. There’s so much of it that you figure out as you go. There’s definitely taking advantage of books on leadership or being mentored by others that have come before you, but there’s nothing like being in it to really make all the mistakes, hopefully learn from them, and start to formulate what you think is a, a good compilation of strategies, right? There’s not just one that I think makes a leader, or a CEO, successful. James Di Virgilio: 1:45 Give us a little bit about your, just, biography, sort of the companies that you’ve led. Give us a CV here. Craig Bandes: 1:51 So, very different companies, very different industries. The first company I co-founded with a partner was in IT staffing and consulting — and that was an area where he had slightly more experience than I did in it. And we were big users of those, sort of resources and vendors when we’re both working together as executives in a telecom company, which [inaudible] many back around the uh, circa 2000, didn’t work out after raising lots and lots of money — which was my main job when I was there. And so we started it together, and it was not my lifelong dream to do it, but I had more entrepreneurial background than he did, so it was more, helping get started. I did that for a couple of years, and I’m still running more of a lifestyle type of business today, and decided that really was not what I was looking for, so [I] moved on from that and got recruited to go join a — very early stages — a company that was being formed in the Homeland Security sector, not too long after 9/11. So this would have been in, like, early 2003 when the Department of Homeland Security was just really coming together; and there was a huge need for companies that could come in and provide services to this [inaudible] organization to try and find all kinds of ways to make sure we were better prepared for all kinds of things and acts of terrorism, for sure, but just generally, even natural disasters. It’s not something that was well-integrated in state and local and federal governments. And so I was brought in [inaudible] Global Secure as the president. I wound up taking over the CEO title about a year later and grew that company to, from really three of us, to about 300 people with operations in five states that span software development and training services, and many batches of protective gear and raised about $25 million, maybe closer to $30 million, had nationwide distribution channels we set up… And then ultimately, after trying to go public, but not hitting the window at the right time, when I’m selling off the business at the end of 2007, into early 2008. And that’s about the time that I was approached by a friend, who’s a corporate attorney in D.C., to try and take a look at this company called Pixeligent, which was a very early-stage, non-material company at the time, but also happened to find themselves in a bad spot of bankruptcy and litigation against a large public company. So I was really brought in to see if it was salvageable, and brought in some experts that knew IP portfolios much better than I did, said there was good IP here, and decided to get involved and see if I could at least get it turned upright, and then see what happened. Appointed by the bankruptcy court, the chief restructuring officer wound up restructuring the company, ending the litigation, getting back control of the IP. And then we had to raise money for a pre-revenue, recently bankrupt, [inaudible] technology company in January of 2009 — which could not have been worse timing. So we got out by the skin of our teeth, for myself and a bunch of local investors that I know and started the process of rebuilding Pixelligent. James Di Virgilio: 4:38 That’s a fascinating story that we could spend an entire podcast on, for sure. I also started my wealth management firm in February of 2009. So I know, I know exactly what kind of time that was. All right, Greg, take us back to what you would consider to be your early formative years as either a CEO or a co-founder. What was it like for you to take on that kind of role? Craig Bandes: 5:02 So, we went in with — on the first one, at least — called Focus Technology, we went in saying, “hey, we’re going to start this company.” The telecom company had ended. And there were a bunch of really good people that we thought we could bring on quickly. First time I wrote a big check to get something started as did my partner. And it was just dark right, and very entrepreneurial, not a lot of great planning. It was just, “we think there’s a good opportunity and let’s, let’s go.” And the first big lessons for me there were, one: we hired a lot of people too quickly. And all of a sudden we had a burn that put a lot of pressure on us to go close business in a way that was really not organic. We figured it out, but it wasn’t without a lot more pressure [ inaudible] that we really needed to put ourselves under, and we should have started much more cautiously with a handful of people, including ourselves, and built it a little more brick by brick. I think the timing was, around when we started the business, was when things were contracting in the world of telecos. And we thought that meant it would be a good opportunity to go after short-term staffing, as these companies were cutting fixed overhead and we realized that that was not the right premise, that the consultants were the first to go. And so there , there is a lot of things that we jumped out of the gate on, and I put a lot more faith than my partner, who felt he knew that business better than I did. And within about six months, we were digging ourselves out, as opposed to growing the company. That first lesson, or basket of lessons, was: when you’re starting, start more carefully — really understand the markets better, the timing of what’s happening in those markets better. Figure out what is the right number of employees you need to really just get things started — and even if it means you’re going to lose some really terrific talent that you may not be able to get back, it’s a safer, better bet to do that and then go find other team members as you grow. Those were the main lessons on that. And we learned them righting the ship. We wound up, you know, growing a lot more carefully after that, but those were some early missteps that, in hindsight, seem obvious, but at the time we were just excited to take off. James Di Virgilio: 6:58 Yeah. Why take on a project like this? You come out of school, you’re starting to do whatever it is you want to do. Why take on an entrepreneurial project in the first place? Craig Bandes: 7:07 I wouldn’t advise it, actually. In fact , if I look at some of the issues that led to pretty serious circumstances that Pixelligent found themselves in, it was started by three PhDs that just got through their postdoctorates and started this company without ever having worked in a business, and then really understanding what all the facets are. And sometimes for folks that are sort of, deep buried in the technology, they think the technology is the hard part in business and growing is the easy part, which obviously is not the case. There’s tens of billions of pieces of paper, of patents, out there that will never see the light of day. Most of the time — and there are the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Bill Gateses of the world — for every one of those there’s millions more that maybe try too early. And so I would say the first thing is, that it’s better to go out and just get some level of experience before you start. I think once you have that, and you have an idea of that you think is a service or a product that’s missing in , in whatever market that you’re in, or you’re aware of. And you get to a point where you just realize that, “if I don’t try it, I’ll never know, and I’ll always regret it.” And then you jump into it . But jumping in with more experience, I think, really increases the odds of surviving . James Di Virgilio: 8:14 This is a lot of good information. Let’s probe this a little bit further. You talked about funding early on, and obviously that’s the lifeline of any company that’s trying to go anywhere. You have to fund your ideas, be able to get your product or service to market. It’s much different obtaining funding in your current role at your current stage, I’m sure than it was in the beginning, in the early stages. What was it like for you to take on a project and then have to go out and get funding in the early stages, given that you had probably never generated funding for something before? Craig Bandes: 8:42 So my background was a little different. I came out of investment banking and venture cap. And so, so I was very comfortable with the capital markets. Back — growing up, my family had an over-the-counter trading firm when I got my [inaudible] seven right after high school. So I was deeply enmeshed in the financial markets and was very comfortable in the language, and the way things worked . So, for me, jumping into raising capital was something that was a skill set that I just already had, so I think on that front, I definitely had an advantage. I did a lot of capital raising at the telecom company where it was $275 million of equity and debt capital for that company, and then filed to go public with that company as well, and ran that process. So I had a lot of really good background . So when I jumped into, even with Focus — the first company — we raised a little bit of money, like a million and a half or $2 million, maybe. Beyond that we put into it ourselves, it wasn’t that difficult. I think as you start to go into companies that have a much bigger appetite for cash, like this one — Pixelligent — today, we raised over $50 million of equity so far, and we’re not done yet. But what I learned along the way here is that there’s many different types of capital. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs get focused on venture, and very few of them get it. And so you can spend a lot of time , especially at the early stage of launching, trying to go chase that capital with a very low likelihood of success. And so I think about it of: there’s many pockets of capital , right? There’s the initial friends and family round, then there’s the angel round, then there’s a super angel round, family offices. And then there’s different flavors of different stages of venture capitalists. There’s corporate venturing — and that helps bring in some strategic capital that may help you scale your business faster, open up markets faster than you could on your own. And so when I tell friends, or , or when I mentor for classes, that you really want to understand, what type of capital do you need, how much do you really need to get to the next one or two milestones to start to show real progress? And you can point to success that will help you go raise additional and greater sums of capital and really know the audience who you’re talking to well — in terms of the type of investor you’re talking to because each one of those that I mentioned will have a very different set of criteria they’re looking at and a different set of objectives that they’re looking for. And so sometimes I see, especially first-time money-raisers , kind of put together a deck and think it’s a one size-fits-all. And it’s not. I have probably put together, even with Pixelligent, hundreds of different decks, targeting different types of investors, depending on really understanding what their objectives were and why they would want to write a check. James Di Virgilio: 11:13 Yeah, that’s really good information, especially on the funding side, which you mentioned a little bit already about. Especially if they’re inventors on the technology side or the ones that created the innovation, the business side tends to be foreign to them — and the funding side tends to be very, very foreign. What were some challenges that you faced or found particularly difficult during the early stages of your career? Again, as a CEO and co-founder. Craig Bandes: 11:37 I think some of the challenges or the key lessons learned, well we covered a little bit of this already, which is: start more slowly and build into it so that you don’t put too much pressure on capital raised and just control the burn until you really start to get real revenue traction with your customers. I think the understanding of all kinds of different stakeholders that can help you be successful, right ? So we talked just now about raising capital — that’s one area you need to know — but I had great success in bringing on awesome advisory board members along the way who bring skill sets from a technical perspective, a financial perspective, maybe more of a strategic or a market entrepreneurial perspective. And having them on the team not only makes the team overall smarter, we can leverage their experience. We can leverage their networks in terms of capital raising, customers, or just an understanding of how markets work. And I think the other key piece of it is: when you’re out there building the company, you’ve really got to focus on bringing on the right employees, right? And every time I settled for anybody, you’re bringing on the wrong body. You have to, even though you might be under a great deal of pressure, you know you need more people, you really have to focus and t ake the time to bring on the right people. And the right people will be the ones that you have to sell. It’s just not a matter of you’re going to give them a job and pay them a salary a nd g etting t hem m ix equity. B ut people that I brought on that have been the best, h ave really been the ones that have put me through the pieces the most a nd t urned o ut to be the most productive and most loyal employees. And so, really understanding as t he CEO, it’s your job to basically convince and sell all your stakeholders. I t’s not just t hat in this case, a, uh, an investor stakeholder, but really everybody that you need to be on the team to help you be successful. James Di Virgilio: 13:21 So true when it comes to people being what moves these things forward, right? The wrong team and the best ideas — not going to get it done. You have to have both of those things. Let’s move from, let’s call it, your rookie years, your early years to your middle years. You’re a veteran now. You’re established, you’ve done some things already. You’ve learned some of these lessons, which you’ve already shared, thus far. How did that change how you were able to lead as a CEO, having some of that experience under your belt already? Craig Bandes: 13:46 So I think part of it is you , you learn to be a little more thoughtful before you make decisions, in terms of people over investment. Once you’ve gone through some of those painful processes in the past that you were maybe moving too quickly, I think you start to realize how important the CEO is in setting the tone for the organization and understanding really the impact you have on the organization. Sometimes we’re so focused on the objective of just getting it done and charging hard to go after, especially after you raise some capital and you’ve got investors over your shoulder. It’s really important that you make sure that the team really understands where you’re headed, and why that’s hard, in an entrepreneurial venture, is that that changes, right? The classic word, pivot — there’s many pivots. I can’t count them [inaudible] here. And when you do that, it’s really important to make sure everyone understands what the new objectives and goals are and to spend the time with everybody. And I think some of the mistakes I’ve made was: I thought it was clear after one meeting and “we got to go do this.” And it wasn’t. And sometimes that would make people frustrated. Sometimes it would make them feel alienated . Sometimes they would leave, because they didn’t understand the direction . And so really making sure that as we’re moving forward, everyone that’s in the huddle really has a good understanding of where we’re going, why we’re going there, what the play is that we’ve called. And so when we go execute, we don’t have a problem . And I think that’s something that I did not really take into account or grasp as much as I needed to early on. And now I spend a lot more time communicating with the team, making sure we all understand where we’re moving forward. I think you can’t over-communicate — you can have too many meetings — but you can’t over-communicate to make sure everybody understands really where we’re at. James Di Virgilio: 15:21 That’s a great one. Oftentimes as a leader, you can have a lot of thoughts in your head and you live with those thoughts every single day. And you spit out a few sentences, a paragraph, some moments at a meeting where you think the direction is clearly understood, but other people are not necessarily living in your head all day, knowing all the thoughts you have, and it comes out to them as some passing thoughts. So that’s a great key takeaway there. During the veteran’s stage, if you will, the middle stage of your, your CEO life, how did you handle growing and expanding rapidly, really starting with X number of people and then very quickly you find yourself with growing resources, growing staff — how are you able to navigate that successfully? Craig Bandes: 15:56 I think it’s been different with different companies that I’ve been a part of. With Global Secure, we were a buy-and-build strategy, so we acquired three companies and another one, but it was more like a foreclosure and we got the product line and some people. So that one, we were able to scale very quickly because we had the cash and we were able to make some good acquisitions. And then that was more around an integration of the company. Now, each of these companies that we acquired were meant to be in separate areas and talked about. So it was software, it was training, it was product manufacturing. So it wasn’t meant to make them work together, but still finding a way to keep, thematically, why we did what we did, and scaling that. So it was more, each one of those was very much like scaling three individual companies, which had its own set of challenges, but I also had very competent executives running those divisions. And so we were able to, as a team, move that one along pretty quickly and scale pretty quickly based off of the infrastructure that was already there when we acquired this company, but Pixelligent’s different — Pixelligent was seven PhDs, and then me, and this is a chemical manufacturing company — it’s around novel technology and nanotech , and I had never taken chemistry. I’d taken some physics. So it really was an amazingly steep learning curve for me across everything that we did. And so for this one, it was more really getting my head around, “okay, what are we doing?” And what the initial path was didn’t work. So what capabilities do we have? And I think we can go sell to the market that differentiates us, and really kind of start here one step at a time and build it brick by brick, as we start to get some level of customer interest in them, and then start to build up a brand, initially here. And then we started going to Asia very early to build up our reputation there because that’s a big market for us — still spent a lot of time there, you know, non-COVID time. So it was a much more methodical approach of how we build and scale a team. But even here, we scaled very quickly. Around 2015 or 2017, we got our first big market –it was going to be in the area of solid-state lighting and LEDs. And ultimately, we missed the timing on that and we had to scale back and cut the company [inaudible] very quickly just to kind of give ourselves time to pivot, and now we’ve been in a rebuilding mode again, really since 2019. But in this situation, I was able to read much more quickly what was happening, make the change — as painful as it was — very fast, early on to give us time to recover and redirect ourselves. And had I not had the prior experiences, I think it would have made the decision [inaudible] . James Di Virgilio: 18:20 So the prior experience obviously helps you as a leader to make better decisions. You have an algorithm in your mind that says, “I’ve tried that, that’s not going to work in this situation. That’s going to more efficiently get you to the right answer.” How does your own personal brand help you? Obviously, if you’re in the middle stage, you’re a veteran, right? You basically have a resume that people can look at where it says, “hey, Craig has been successful doing this and that.” And at the table, that gives you a little bit more credibility, right? When you’re having these discussions during those years, what you say has a little more weight than if you’re in the beginning where you’re , you’re sort of fighting tooth-and-nail, just to get some respect. Craig Bandes: 18:54 I think that’s right. But beyond the credibility that may be on a piece of paper, your experience just comes out, right? In conversations with potential employees, with investors, with board members, you’re trying to recruit budget board members, customers, you just have more confidence because you’ve just been through so many battles; you’ve made, and hopefully learned from, a number of big and small mistakes along the way. And like anything else, you just feel better prepared. Whether you’re looking to recruit a junior marketing person who has 10 offers and you really want her and her business, or you’re in front of the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, trying to convince them to write a check to invest in you. You just have the confidence to be able to have those conversations. You prepare for them obviously, but then there’s just a certain level of understanding and background, and reading a room or a person that you just get with experience, right? So I think for me, that’s the biggest part of it is just having lived through so much of it. I’m sure, you know, having a good background and people see you and check you out on LinkedIn — that all helps, like, establish your credibility maybe before you get in the room. But I think we’ve all met people who are a lot better on paper than they are in person. And so being able to, when you’re in that situation, in person, with whoever it is you’re trying to talk to, having that experience and confidence and being able to understand what their objectives are, what yours are, and trying to find the right way to get to the result you want is really just experience. James Di Virgilio: 20:13 And you’ve touched on this now, at least you’ve touched on the now throughout this conversation, which has been great. Let’s bring you into the now in this moment right now — here we are in 2021 — you are the Pixelligent CEO; you have this wealth of experience behind you. The first question I want to ask is: in your opinion, is being a CEO today — is it different than it was 15 or 20 years ago? Is it harder? Is it easier? Craig Bandes: 20:36 I don’t think it’s ever easy — it’s different, right? I think it’s a much more global environment. I mean, even for the size we are today — which is not big — in terms of employees, I have a team, small team in Korea and Taiwan. Prior to COVID, I would be in Asia once a quarter, visiting three or four countries, talking to customers and partners; we have distributors in Japan and China and Korea, Taiwan. You got to keep on top of those guys. So I just think everything is more spread out. Everything is global. And you have to think about your business and today probably on a much more global way than you ever have, and it’s not going to go backwards. I think having the mindset that what you make is important, but also how you make it, and the people you have onboard your team that are responsible for delivering it is really important. So I think diversity should have always been important. I think now it has obviously a lot more of a spotlight on it. We worked and had a very diverse workforce across everything and everyone that’s here. And I say everything. I mean, everything that we do, we have manufacturing, we have our research and development, we have formulation technology, I mean finance, and we have diversity really throughout the organization. And I think that adds to it. And I think there’s thankfully been a lot more focus on that, but you know , I’m reading more and more articles of how that is really in this ESG movement, more and more how CEOs are being judged. And I think that’s right. I think having a more sustainability and environmentally conscious mindset is critical. What we do as a materials company — it’s super important. What we make makes everything we go into a lot more efficient. So we’re directly in line with that. But we also think a lot about how are we making it? And what kind of footprint are we leaving? So I think from that perspective, it’s a lot more today about, broadly, what are you delivering and how are you delivering it ? Can it be more efficient, maybe less impactful? I think that’s different than what you probably had 15, 20 years ago, which creates opportunities, but for sure, a lot more moving pieces. James Di Virgilio: 22:25 So how do you handle the pressure of the media, public opinion, these goals, these directives, the globalization of being a CEO, how is all of that handled? Craig Bandes: 22:34 I think it’s different for every leader in how they internalize that process and use it. For me, it’s really about — doesn’t matter the size of the organization — we all have an impact on making sure that we create environments that are creating good opportunities for our employees to grow and to learn and to contribute. I think when you read some of these stories out there of CEOs who’ve gone astray that have made some pretty poor choices. You read some of these crazy pay packages that CEOs of large companies are getting paid, even when they don’t do a great job, and they have these massive payouts. I think it’s harder when you’re talking to other media folks sometimes and saying, “not all CEOs go about their business the same way.” And so I do think there is a little bit of extra thought you have to put into, to make sure that you are understood by your stakeholders and the media in a way that you want to be portrayed, which is being a thoughtful leader, that you understand the responsibilities we have as leaders; it’s not only about making a lot of money for your shareholders or for your top people at the company, but it really is trying to make sure you share that as much as you can along the way. And you have equal balance on your overall responsibility along the way. So I think some of what’s happened has been an important wake-up call. I think it’s good. I think holding the senior executive leadership of companies, large and small, more accountable is really important. And again, I think it’s a difference from what you saw 15 or 20 years ago, but I think it’s a good difference. James Di Virgilio: 24:04 Craig, I can tell through all of your answers that you’re someone who’s constantly trying to improve, and you’re taking lessons from the past and you’re applying them to today. So with that lens, what are you thinking about and focusing on now, as it pertains to you improving as a leader? Craig Bandes: 24:20 A lot of my focus now is on how do we, as still a relatively small company, have ultimately the impact that we believe we can have, and then how do we attract more like-minded people like us to our mission here to continue to grow the company? I’m spending a lot more time — we touched on this a little while ago — I’m really just thinking about: where are the critical roles we need to bring on? What do those people look like; if they have a similar mindset; and to make sure we maintain that, as things continue to progress for us… Because as you grow and, we are about to hit another, I believe, pretty serious rapid growth spurt in the next 12 to 24 months, how do you not lose hold of that? In terms of really focusing on these critical issues of impact, footprint, bringing on the right people along the way, making sure we continue to maintain the diverse workforce that we have, and just making sure that we continue to really live up to the credo that we have and the ideals that we have as we grow the company through this next level here. I think that’s probably the thing I focus the most on right now. We have the ability now with what we’ve accomplished to go, you know, access different sources of capital. We know our products that we have are impactful and the customers are telling us that. And we’re, we’re actually in a great position where we, in some ways, almost have more business than we can keep up with right now. So now it’s a matter of: how do we continue to keep the right focus here as we grow the company along the lines that we just mentioned? James Di Virgilio: 25:46 Craig, let’s talk about strategy. Obviously, you had mentioned right in the opening that when you came onboard with Pixelligent, there was a very interesting landscape, all sorts of things going on — legally, a bankruptcy, et cetera. How did you decide first that you were going to take on this project, that it was worthy of taking it on; and secondarily, how did you go about deciding what strategy to take to be able to take the IP that was obviously good, as you said, and bring it actually to market in a way that was going to work? Craig Bandes: 26:14 With Pixelligent, I had just finished with Global Secure and was joining some boards and doing some angel investing. As I said, a friend of mine in the D.C. area, his lawyer said, “hey, there’s this company that’s doing some work for the University of Maryland. They’re saying they have some of the most important technology they’ve seen come out of their incubator program, but they need to be helped. Can you go talk to them?” And so I sat down and I got with the team and then some of the advisors, and they had some pretty good folks. And the more I understood how they found themselves in that terrible bind, it was just a lot of really bad decisions, right? The technology was good. They actually had a financial backer who was really strong, who was still a supporter of the company. It was just a series of bad decisions. And then a lot of that driven by the inexperience, because they hadn’t been in the business environment before — they just started it right after their PhD programs — I felt this company shouldn’t die because of financially inexperienced decisions. So I decided to get involved. I had some time, of course it was on my time. Rolled up my sleeves, figure out what’s going on. I’ve gone through the restructuring processes before. So I was able to jump into that and go talk to the bankruptcy judge and buy some time, and then just start to untangle the mess. And so I brought in these IP lawyers who said, “there’s really important, valuable patents here around this brave new world of nanotechnology. And so there’s value here if you can figure out a way to make the mess go away.” So part of this job was at the end of the day, if we could get out of bankruptcy and the litigation, we might just sell off the patents and have a return and move on. Or we were trying to actually build something. At that point, I had taken a deep dive in “why had so many nanotechnology companies failed?” And at that point, most of them had — about $4 [billion] or $5 billion of venture money went into a nanotech company circa 2000, about $12 billion of government funding had gone into supporting growing nanotechnology initiatives and universities and companies, and then another $4 [billion] or $5 [billion] or $10 billion [inaudible] these days went in with corporate, and very little came out. And what I realized was, taking a deep dive, is that a lot of the first round of nanotech companies looked a lot like Pixelligent — brilliant scientists , nobody from a manufacturing perspective or a business perspective. And so really what I decided is that, if we could get in and find a way to make these products, these materials at scale and manufacture them, then there’s potential here, because at some point there would be a billion dollar company here. In the world of nanotech, it just has to happen with as much money and talent and energy was going into it. And so if we could crack the manufacturing scale-up code, where almost everyone else failed, then we would have a shot at becoming a meaningful company. And so as part of that, we went after a very large government program just after getting out of bankruptcy, and it was a hail Mary, and it was one of the first programs focused on the manufacturability of a nanoparticle versus the invention of one [inaudible] . And that really launched the company. And since then, manufacturability is deep in our DNA as the invention of human service . And that’s really what sets us apart. So when we have fortune 500 companies, can’t talk about most of them, but one of them was [inaudible] and that many others come and visit us and kick our tires. They see that we’re different because they can see our manufacturing lines right next to our R&D labs. And so part of it was, I felt that there was the potential to build something meaningful that could have a big impact, would help in the world of sustainability because of the way we make the materials and the efficiencies that they bring, and, ultimately, there were going to be some really big successful companies in the space. And if we can get the manufacturing down, that we would have as good a shot as anyone. James Di Virgilio: 29:48 So, you build out this broad strategy, which was very well laid out right there. How does it go from that to something more narrow — strategy into actual tactics, as you moved along through the curve of progression with Pixelligent? Craig Bandes: 30:01 So you start with, “okay, we have to know that we can manufacture whatever, right?” So the first thing is to hire the right people. So I brought on, pretty early on, a great senior executive and a manufacturing group , understanding of our business. And I told them when you join, “look, here’s the deal: walk down to the scientists , see what they’re doing. And if there’s anything that they’re doing that you think won’t scale, we’re going to tell them to stop.” And they came back and said, “there are a number things that they’re doing that won’t scale. They are using materials that are [inaudible] … or they’re so toxic, you can’t put more than a gallon of them in the building, or you can be shut down by the fire marshal, or downstage processing, and environmental and safety and health issues that no large company will let you go into their building, from a manufacturing perspective. So very early on the tactics were, “okay, we’re only going to make things in the lab that we have a 75% chance that we believe can be scaled, and not violate those issues of safety and scalability that are required to be in fortune 500 supply chains .” So I think that was the key first step around manufacturing, tactically. And then it was okay, how do we build a new manufacturing line that has never existed before that makes these nanoparticles at scale? At that point, we’ve made them like a beaker [ inaudible] , right? How do you start to put these in large, 30, 50, 100, 200-gallon reactors that are making tons of material and still keep the same quality — which is really what set us apart from everyone else in the world, with the quality of the particle? And so we spent a lot of time and cracked that code, and a lot of money to crack that code, both from that program we got from the government, and then more equity that we raised around it. And so, tactically, it was just really spending time stage-by-stage. And from the scale-up perspective, there are steps you have to take so that you don’t just start with a coffee cup and go to a 200-gallon reactor. You start with a coffee cup, you go to a Crock-Pot , you go to a pressure cooker, all along the way to make sure that as you scale, you are able to control what’s happening. And we did that very methodically. So from that perspective, I think tactically is what we did there. Then the other side of it was to get out there into the market, and really just explain that what our technology can do, because we didn’t really know yet which customers in which markets were going to care most. But we started going out to conferences very early on; in generally the area of advanced materials and electronics, and slowly started to figure out after many, many of these trade shares and conferences, which areas that we were seeing the most pull from, and then we would focus our energy and capital around those. And we’ve kind of followed that same methodology throughout. And then we started seeing pull from Asia and, “okay, let’s go over there and start meeting with central customers and partners.” And then from there, “okay, we need a distributor because we need someone that can import this for us.” And , and then if you start with one and then you’ve got two, and then you get five , right? And so you start with what is the big problem that we need to solve, or prove that we can solve, to get the credibility? And then what’s the next one? And then what’s the next one, and what’s the next one? And then, tactically, bring in the right people to execute out all those plans. James Di Virgilio: 33:03 Really well said. That’s a nice curve of progression through strategy, down to tactics being flexible and nimble, but then really making sure that you solve, solve the code-breaking problem that either breaks you or breaks for you. And scalability is certainly one of those things that affects a lot of companies and it’s often too late by the time they realize it. So lastly, now we’re standing today where you are, you’ve built Pixelligent to where it is, of course you and your team and everyone working there, you’ve utilized all of the strategies and tactics. You’ve mentioned you have this wealth of experience in front of you and behind you. What are you looking at for Pixelligent into the future? Craig Bandes: 33:36 I think we have a really unique opportunity over the next three to five years to become one of those first companies to really break out in a market that has been waiting for somebody for 20 years. We have the right combination of the right technology at the right time. When I say “at the right time,” you know, the materials that we make, to get geeky for a second, they’re referred to as “high index materials.” It’s a way for us to get more light into or out of the system or bend light in a way that makes something work better. And that was a(n) interesting concept. And that’s kind of cool when we first started doing it in 2013, and now we have to have that in these next generation displays, augmented and mixed reality devices that we’re all going to be wearing in the sensors that are moving into really becoming part of everything from self-driving cars and drones, and everywhere you touch there’s a sensor… That all of these products now require the materials, the types of materials that we make, in a proprietary way. And so we’re having some of the best companies in the world approach us about integrating that into their technology. Our challenge now is that we’re supporting some of the biggest technology companies in the world with a very small, relatively small team, less than 50 people. And we have to scale that quickly now to not lose these opportunities, because they’re now expecting us to look like the companies we compete against, which are massive companies: Dow, DuPont, Merck, and others at that scale in electronic material space. And so we now have to prove to them that we can deliver at that same level. Now they’re saying they’re bought in on the technology. Now they have to buy in on our capability to really deliver, to give them the customer support that they need, the quality metrics that they demand, and then the ability to supply them wherever they are around the world. So now it’s a matter of, back to your question about strategy and tactics, and we have the strategy of where we want to go. We have the customers, and now tactically, how do we start to go do this? So, I was in Korea. I first shipped out of the country in a long time, three weeks ago, and was able to get an expedited quarantine time. And we closed a partnership with a large Korean partner who is going to be a manufacturing partner for us in Asia. Critical staff . We started that 18 months ago and worked through a number of them before we found the right one and had to go there to meet the CEO. And he had to meet me, and make sure that it was the right thing — thank goodness it was. And so we’re putting in place the infrastructure also on a global basis to be able to go do that and not entirely on our own, even if you have all the resources, all the cash you need, it still makes sense to partner , especially if you’re going into new markets and new regions that you’ve never built anything in before. And so it’s continuing to execute on what I think I have a pretty good handle on, of expanding the types of partners and stakeholders that can really help us execute a pretty big strategy on a global basis and realizing that you can’t, and you shouldn’t, do it alone. And just making sure you’re picking the right partners and the right people to help you get there along the way. James Di Virgilio: 36:26 And perfect. That’s a wrap. Great job, Craig, great answers, really insightful stuff, really logical linear thinking, which makes sense from a finance guy. That’s , that’s how we tend to do things. And from Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio. Outro: 36:39 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episode’s host was James Di Virgilio, and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeek. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Welcome back everyone! It's been a while since we last saw each other, but good things come to those to wait..... and this week's episode brings us a very good thing as it is the very first musician interview on the show starring Gainesville's one and only DRIPTONES!! These guys are absolutely incredible. Their music is dope, they're totally genre-bending, and the guys are not only talented but also such a fun time. The Driptones will also be performing their last Gainesville show of 2021 THIS FRIDAY NOVEMBER 5th at Heartwood Soundstage, and Saturday November 6th they're performing at Space Coast Music Festival in Melbourne, FL! Be sure to go check them out on Instagram @thedriptones, and get ready for an awesome episode.Loop Songs of the Week ;)1. "Honey" - Moxie2. "Wildfires" - The Late Night Losers3. "Rain" - Mac Miller ft. Vince Staples

Weaver Gaines shares his experiences as the CEO of several startup companies in terms of the highs, the lows, the expected, and the unexpected: “So I think you can inculcate a culture from the top, from the beginning, that says, ‘We don’t lie. We don’t cheat. We don’t steal. And we’re not going to tolerate people who do those things.’ You can make that happen throughout your company, regardless of its size. But the other stuff, the commitment to the task, the belief in what you’re doing, all of that stuff, has to be established when the company is small and then you hope it will permeate the company as it grows.” Gaines has served as the CEO of Evren Technologies, OBMedical Company and Ixion Biotechnology. Additionally he has been the chairman of several companies and non-profits, and is a member of the Keck Graduate Institute’s Corporate Relations Board. In this episode, Weaver shares with host Richard Miles the importance of a CEO’s role to encourage teamwork, foster trust in a company, and grow — in a way that’s not just about the money. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. Starting in running your own company — It’s not for everyone. For those who have done it, it can be exhilarating, exhausting, and easily the hardest thing they’ve ever done. We decided to go out and talk to some of those people and find out what they’ve learned, what they’d repeat, what they’ll never do again, or hear stories from their first year, then from the period when they realized they’re going to survive and how they intend to position their companies for the future. We’ll find out what a CEO’s normal day is like, how they build and manage their teams, what it’s done to their personal lives. And finally, when is it time to move on? Join us for CEO 101, a limited series of deep looks at people who are their own boss — for better or for worse. Welcome to another episode of CEO 101, a series of special episodes in which we talk to and about CEOs of startup companies. I’m your host, Richard Miles. Today my guest is Weaver Gaines , the CEO of several companies, including Evren Technologies, OBMedical, both of those are medical device companies, as well as Ixion Biotechnology. He’s also served as a chairman of numerous companies and non-profits, among other things. Welcome to the show, Weaver. Weaver Gaines: 1:18 “Well, thank you for having me here,” I think is the formulaic response to– Richard Miles: 1:22 That’s right, there’s only one right answer. You’re not going to be here. Weaver, you’ve done a lot of stuff in your life and your career. So why don’t we just start with a short overview of your career? Weaver Gaines: 1:31 Okay. Well, one way of thinking about my career is, “here’s a guy who obviously can’t keep a job.” I went to law school primarily because even though I was an ROTC commissioned officer, everybody else was trying to avoid being drafted into the war in Vietnam. And they were all going to law school and they were on the debate team at Dartmouth, so I went to law school too , with about that much forethought about it. And when I graduated from law school, I went on active duty and I spent two years in the army — one year in Europe, in Heidelberg and Berlin. And one year in long been Vietnam — an experience for which I will be always grateful. The whole experience was extraordinary. I’m glad I did it. I can’t talk anybody into doing it now, but I think it’s really one of the formative experiences of my life. And I’m glad I got involved in it. Richard Miles: 2:17 This is being in the military or being in Vietnam, or both? Weaver Gaines: 2:19 Both. Well, the military itself is an extraordinary experience, and being in a world at war where there are people who are actually trying to kill you every day, although you could argue that that was like being in New York, and , um , it was a different circumstance and I’m glad I did it. Richard Miles: 2:35 And you were in an infantry unit in Vietnam, correct? Weaver Gaines: 2:37 No, I was not in an infantry unit in Vietnam. I was a company commander in Berlin, but when I got to Vietnam, the army had just invoked the update to the military justice system, in which for the first time, if the defendant asked for a lawyer, he got a lawyer. Before then, he only got a lawyer if the trial counsel , the army’s prosecutor was a lawyer. Otherwise officers served in that role and the army and its usual degree of incredible forward thinking came up on the day where they had to supply a lawyer to everybody without any lawyers . So a lot of non-JAG lawyers got JAG positions — Judge Advocate General positions. Richard Miles: 3:14 You had a law degree. Weaver Gaines: 3:15 I had a law degree, and by the way, it made the judge advocate guys really mad because they had signed on for four years in order to avoid combat. And here were all these combat arms like me. I only had two years and also avoided combat, but we didn’t avoid people shooting at us or setting– Richard Miles: 3:34 You were in a combat zone. Weaver Gaines: 3:35 We were in a combat zone. And then I went to work for the law firm that I had intended to go to work for. And I worked for them for a bunch of years and decided that being in a law firm wasn’t that interesting. So I went to a corporation and in the middle of that gig, I realized that, really, I wanted to do it more than I wanted to give people advice about how to do it. So I now call myself a recovering lawyer. And while I provided legal services to the companies that I’ve founded, mostly I’m being an executive and mostly in financial or life science businesses. So to get to the crux of CEO 101, I came to Gainesville after I had spent a year on the national reelection campaign for Bush-Quayle in 1992 . And since Bush didn’t get reelected, clearly doing something in Washington, D.C. was not in the cards. I came down to Gainesville where I had a weekend place and a friend said, “Let’s start a biotech company.” And so that’s how I started my first entrepreneurial biotech company. Richard Miles: 4:34 So, Weaver, I’ve got to say that the first parts of our lives eerily track one another. Of course I was in the army as well, got out of the army. And if things had gone right, I’d be in the Jeb Bush administration right now. But things apparently didn’t go that way. So I moved to Gainesville too , but I didn’t start any successful biotech company. So apart from that small asterisk, essentially we’ve lived the same life. Weaver Gaines: 4:55 Well, I can’t say the first one was a successful biotech company. It was named Ixion Biotechnology and I picked its name, a Greek name, very common in science to use Greek. Ixion sounded good. It said that Ixion had been condemned by Zeus to be bound to a burning wheel for eternity. And since the product we were thinking about was going to be used to treat recurrent kidney stones, I thought, well, that sounds like being bound to a burning wheel, that’s not bad. And after the company had been going for two or three years, I asked my very first associate, the first person who joined me, I said, you know, I don’t know anything about this guy, Ixion, whose name, by the way was pronounced ex-eye-on, but I gave up. Everybody called it Ixion. And he comes back to me and he says, “well, do you want to know why he was condemned by Zeus to be bound to a burning wheel for eternity ?” “No. Why?” “Because he attempted to rape Hera. That’s why.” So I named my first company after an attempted rapist. Richard Miles: 5:50 So marketing was not really your strong suit– Weaver Gaines: 5:51 Absolutely not . Nobody knew that except us. And so we never told anybody, and I think this is the first time I’ve ever broadcasted it, for that matter. Richard Miles: 5:58 Anyone owning Ixion stock out there, maybe now’s the time to sell. Weaver Gaines: 6:02 Now’s the time to sell or to put it on 4Chan or something like that, but that was an enlightening experience, Richard. I made, I literally made every mistake a startup entrepreneur could make, although there were some mistakes I couldn’t make because an earlier mistake had sorta foreclosed the possibility of– Richard Miles: 6:19 So we’re going to get into that. But before that, I wanted to ask you. So you get out of the army. This must have been what? Early 70s-ish? Weaver Gaines: 6:25 Yeah, 70s, basically. Richard Miles: 6:26 And you’re an army brat. So what brought you to Gainesville? Did you have a family connection here? Weaver Gaines: 6:32 Okay. So my dad was a graduate at the University of Florida, ROTC graduate — World War II, Korea, Vietnam vet himself, and my sister had gone to the University of Florida, one of my sisters had gone to the University of Florida and her best friend here was my current wife, Mary True. And my sister — I’d been married once before — and she said to me, “Look here, Weaver every time you pick out a girl for yourself, you do a poor job.” That’s not exactly what she said, but that’s what she meant, right ? Yes. “I’d like to pick out your next girl for you.” And I said, “well, I can’t do any worse than that.” So, she was from Gainesville. Mary was from Gainesville. So I got to know her and I got to date her, and then we got married and I told her if she would just keep her apartment in Gainesville and not bring her car to New York for less than the cost of parking the car in New York, we could keep the Gainesville apartment . So that’s how I ended up with a place in Gainesville. Richard Miles: 7:27 This was planned from the very beginning, Weaver Gaines: 7:28 Yes, everything thought out carefully in advance with the primary reason for changing directions, being that I had cracked my shins on something and it hurt. And so I would stop to see where I was going. That wasn’t it. So that’s how I got to Gainesville. And that was in late 1992 after the election with the Bush-Quayle campaign. Richard Miles: 7:46 Okay. Prior to that, you were living in New York? Weaver Gaines: 7:50 Prior to that, I was living in Manhattan, New York, except for one year in Philadelphia, where all I could think of was how to get back to Manhattan. Philadelphia is — sorry, Phillies . So I started the first company, as I said, being completely ignorant. And that’s probably the only reason why anybody would start his first company. Richard Miles: 8:10 Take us back to the first few weeks, even of what that was like, first of all, start with what was the core idea or the core business model insight? And then what were your first steps? Did you just sort of file the papers and rent a space somewhere? Or what was– Weaver Gaines: 8:23 Yeah, basically well, sort of that. I got the idea of starting it from a fellow I’d hired at one of my previous jobs who said, “look, let’s start this biotech company. I have a brother who’s a research scientist, the University of Florida, very smart guy.” And he was a very smart guy. And he’s got some technology, which is really exciting. And he had two completely distinct technologies. One was a stem cell treatment for type 1 diabetes. And the other was a probiotic treatment using a bug called Oxalobacter formigenes, you know how that rolls off the tongue. So the very first thing was to learn to pronounce Oxalobacter formigenes. Richard Miles: 8:59 Now I see why Ixion was a more attractive alternative– Weaver Gaines: 9:01 Yes, right, than “Oxalobacter Formigenes Company.” And so the first thing I told him was, “well, I can get the company started, but really, I don’t know anything about biotech.” And he said, “well, you don’t need to, my brother knows about biotech. You need to know about starting companies.” That turned out to be wrong, by the way. And so I said, “well, the very first thing to do is to kind of get our arms around the intellectual property.” Y ou got nothing if you don’t have that. And the intellectual property was resident at the University of Florida, and the University of Florida had an officer in charge of licensing technology. And on a good year, they would license two or three. They license 90 or 100 now. And on a bad year, they didn’t get much done at all. And so it took about a year to negotiate the license for the technology, but you really couldn’t do much else. I mean, I was running it out o f my house because you really couldn’t do much else, right? Because you didn’t have anything to do i t with. Richard Miles: 9:54 Right. Weaver Gaines: 9:55 And in those days you couldn’t be sure you would live long enough to license it from the university. Richard Miles: 10:00 So there was no point in continuing research or things like that or making an investment because you don’t own anything. Weaver Gaines: 10:05 You don’t own anything. And the research has continued and a guy who’s the research side and he’s going on, doing the research at the university. And there was a fellow named Shelley Schuster who, at that time, was the head of the biotech program here at the University of Florida. He’s now at the Keck Graduate Institute. He’s the president of the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, California. And he said, “I have some space in the Progress Center. Why don’t you come out there and have an office in my space while you’re trying to license the technology? And I won’t charge you anything for it.” So yes, I did arrange for an office, but I didn’t pay anything for it. And I went out there and got the office in Progress One, which was, at that time, owned by the university and set up my first computer to demonstrate, yes, we were a company because we had an office– Richard Miles: 10:48 It was a physical, awaiting a computer? Weaver Gaines: 10:50 No, no, it was an IBM. It was an IBM. It had like, I don’t know, 250 bytes of board memory, or so, it’d use the big four-and-a-half-inch floppy disks. But then we got the license. Now you’re going to actually start trying to do something. Richard Miles: 11:06 So after you got done with your bottle of champagne, from getting the license– Weaver Gaines: 11:09 We couldn’t afford champagne. It was a bottle of cold dock , but , um , yeah, we got the license and now we were actually in a position to try and do something. So there’s a whole bunch of things you try and do to get ready to do the thing that you most need to do. So what you most need to do is find money because you can’t do anything without it in the startup world, but you can’t just go say, “give me money; I have an appealing face,” — even worse if you have my face. And so you have to do things like come up with a business plan, think through how exactly you’re going to exploit this technology. What’s feasible? What isn’t? What kinds of research needs to be done? Where are you going to get money to do the research? How far do you have to go in the research before you can make a plausible claim for the money? One of the big mistakes I made was if it’s a really brilliant idea in a magnificent market, they’re going to give you money. No, they’re not. And in this case, it was two, basically, pharmaceutical preparations. And I took a long time to learn that those are decade-long projects — and that’s if they’re ready to be taken out of the university, if they’re developed enough to be taken out of the university, which they said not — another one of my mistakes. And I also didn’t know then, like I know now, that about 90%+ of them will fail. They will not, in fact, ever reach the market — and that’s assuming you can finance it. I’m just talking about the ones that go through the process of bringing a biotechnology, pharmaceutical entity to the point where somebody will buy it or at least be willing to support it to the point where it can be sold, mostly fails. Richard Miles: 12:40 It’s one of those statistics you really don’t need to hear early on. Weaver Gaines: 12:42 No no, well, actually I said, “if you knew, if you knew when you started what you will learn along the way you would go into another line of work,” like, I don’t know, bicycle repair. Richard Miles: 12:50 Something more lucrative, right ? Weaver Gaines: 12:52 Right, plumbing. Richard Miles: 12:53 Plumbing. Yeah . Weaver Gaines: 12:53 So you have to develop a business plan. A lot of people think that you can get somebody to develop a business plan for you, but you can’t. You really have to do it yourself because that’s going to be where you learn about the things you need, but don’t have, and think through how you’re going to get them and then make some guesses about what it’s going to cost you to get from here to there, and with your business plan, and your intellectual property, and some sense of people you might be able to get involved with you that you can talk into working for nothing or nearly nothing, because you’re likely to be working for, not very much money, particularly at the beginning. Quite common for you to go without pay for months at a time, which by the way, Richard, means that if you want to do this sort of game, you can’t be in it for the money because t hat’ll never be good enough. You have to be in it because you think you’re trying to do something that’s worth making some kind of sacrifice for. So when I left the campaign, when Bush lost in 1992, the first thing that happened was I got a job to go to work for a financial service company. And I thought to myself, “well, if we get to the end of the day and they say, ‘okay, Weaver, w hat did you do with your life?’ Say w hat — made a lot of money?” That just didn’t seem very satisfying to me because you can make a lot of money a nd people don’t do that, and there’s nothing wrong with making a lot of money. Good for the people who do. But for me, I thought, you know, my father was a s ervice m an. He spent his life in service and that’s w here I felt a little … smarmy. If that’s all I was going to be able to say, “he made a lot of money,” but if you could say, “well, I tried to cure type 1 diabetes.” Even if it didn’t work, I tried to deal with people who a re suffering from recurrent kidney stones. You ever had a kidney stone? Richard Miles: 14:33 I have not. I’ve seen people who’ve had. Weaver Gaines: 14:35 You don’t want them. Richard Miles: 14:36 Not something I want to do. Weaver Gaines: 14:37 And it turned out, by the way that, that, wasn’t what we ended up trying to get that probiotic to do, because that costs too much money, a long shot, too much money. It ended up being a treatment for a condition called primary hyperoxaluria, which is a genetic condition in which half of the people who have it will die before they’re one year old and the rest will die by the time they’re 12, and there’s no cure. There’s nothing you can do except a kidney-liver transplant. Richard Miles: 15:01 Well, good point that you made there about doing something that you feel makes a difference, and David Brooks, the author, talks about the difference between resume virtues and eulogy virtues, which I think is a nice way of encapsulating ’cause a lot of what we do, certainly as early adults, what we focus on is resume virtues. Weaver Gaines: 15:15 Sure! Richard Miles: 15:16 What’s going to get me my next job? What’s going to get me promoted? What’s going to make me look really good? But if you think about it, when you’re dead and gone, and they’re saying, “Weaver Gaines…” And they just rattle off your qualifications and degrees… Weaver Gaines: 15:29 It’s the same sort of dissatisfaction. And Richard, you and Phoebe have achieved this in your lives with the Cade Museum, and what it represents in terms of contribution to, not just our local community, but to the country and to the world. Richard Miles: 15:42 Well, thank you. Weaver Gaines: 15:44 So you know what I’m talking about. You can only put up with some of this stuff if you’re motivated by something besides the money. Richard Miles: 15:50 But let’s talk about those first few days, because as you well know, from your first few days, it looks really daunting because you wake up and every day your to-do list has a hundred things on it. And all of them are objectively urgent. They all have to be done first, right? Because you get an office. Well, great. Well, your office needs a phone. Well, does it have a phone in it? Maybe it doesn’t. Well, you get a phone and you have to have someone to answer the phone and get the mail, and all of those things were sort of “must-do,” but yet you’ve also got to raise money. So one of the most crucial decisions early on is your first hire, your first couple of hires. Did you have any help in making that decision or was it the first person who walked through the door and needed a job? You said, “go get a phone, go get the mail.” ‘Cause that’s sometimes how it happens, right? Weaver Gaines: 16:30 Well actually I would say what happened in this case was that, because Mary had lived here for a long time, she knew a whole bunch of people: college graduates. Master’s degree in history and he’s helping his wife run a deli, and he became a friend, and he came to me and he said, “either you have to give me a job or I’m going to kill my wife and go to jail. Those are my options. I can’t afford to pay a fine, just as long as I have a job.” And it turned out that one of the critical things, on those first few days, is that there be somebody else there. So while you may have to do everything yourself, sometimes you just can’t do it all today. And even if you could do it tomorrow, even if you could do it tomorrow better than the person that’s working with you, you just can’t bring yourself to do one more thing today after you’ve gotten the mail arranged for the phone, and arrange for the post office to deliver the mail to you the way they said they would, when you put the post office box down and all that sort of stuff … It helps to have somebody there. And somebody you can go in and say, “could you get the phone? Will you answer the phone?” And all that sort of stuff. Richard Miles: 17:33 Right. Weaver Gaines: 17:33 So the very first hire actually was critically important, but did not functionally supply one of the nominal things that we needed, a person who could oversee the science and a person who could handle the legal stuff and all the things that you think of go into a company. But if you’re the only guy on the ground, there’s one person you want to have there that you can turn to and say, “I just, I can’t face this today.” And they’ll do it for you. So that was the very first hire. He was terrific in that role. He later worked for me one other time. In between times, he worked for another one of our local companies that got acquired by SmithKline . Richard Miles: 18:10 And what was his background? Weaver Gaines: 18:11 History major — master’s degree in history. Bright guy, competent, and totally competent and enthusiastic and got caught up in what we were doing. And [he] later took over a lot of things just because he was there, and he was smart, and he could do stuff. And not because he had any background in science or engineering or anything else. Richard Miles: 18:30 This is what we tell people from our limited experience with tech companies is that, people make this assumption, “well, a tech company is just full of engineers and people like that.” It’s like, well, no, every company needs a fairly broad array of talents to just make it to that first milestone. Weaver Gaines: 18:44 Absolutely. Richard Miles: 18:44 Because again, if you don’t have somebody who can help you do all the mundane things that need doing — a room full of 10 engineers that don’t answer the phone or answer the mail is not going to make it. Weaver Gaines: 18:53 And also if you have a company of all engineers and you aren’t, you think you’re speaking their language — it sounds like English — but it’s not. It’s “engineer’s speak.” And it’s hard to communicate with 10 engineers without a translator. Richard Miles: 19:06 So let’s fast forward a little bit, maybe if we’re talking about Ixion or it could be any of the, one of the companies that you started, and I don’t know what the timeline for these companies was, but let’s say you’ve hit your first, maybe, good milestone — whatever that is, and whenever that is. But inevitably, almost every company that succeeds has had at least one, maybe two or more big setbacks. What was, if you’d like to share the details without triggering any lawsuits, what was maybe one of your first big setbacks and how did you recover? Weaver Gaines: 19:32 Okay. Well, I would say that the setbacks tend to come in categories. The one that you’re most conscious of most of the time. So if you’re the CEO of a startup company, you have several jobs and they’re all full-time jobs. And one of them is actually making sure the entity will function, and that it does have telephones and so forth. You don’t have to do it, but you have to make sure of it. And one of them is to make sure that the science is moving forward because it’s never fully developed when you get it. And one of them is raising money. And so basically you’re always raising money. The biggest science setback came when we could not replicate in the company’s labs, the results that were taking place in the scientists’ labs at the university. It was critical that we be able to do the cell culture that he was doing in order to have a product that we could show off to get some more money, right? We couldn’t get it to work. And this is going on for a long time. Now, competent scientists working hand in glove with the people at the university, we can’t get the cells to reproduce? Same refrigerators, same T75 flasks. They won’t grow. “Why not?” A scientist is rolling his eyes. You know, Jesus, he comes out, he can’t get them to grow out there , at the Progress Center either. So the answer to that one was that it turns out that there are two manufacturers of T75 cell culture flasks: Cornell Glass and Phillips . And he was using one and we were using the other — their nominal specifications were identical, but it grew in one, it didn’t grow in the other. And you tell this to people who are cell culture experts, and they say, “Well, yeah, everybody knew that.” I wish they would say, “That’s not possible.” What they say is, “Everybody knows that.” Yeah. Right. No, it made a difference, but that set us back by months. Well, when you’re burning cash every day, whether you’re being set back or not, any one of those kinds of scheduled delays will eventually turn into a financial problem. And the setback comes when you go to people and you say, “We’re not going to be able to make payroll next month. There’s not enough money. We got maybe some coming in, but we’re going to all be working with no money or very little money…” Because some people can’t work with no money. They can’t. Richard Miles: 21:44 Yeah. Weaver Gaines: 21:45 And so you say, “Well, okay,” and one of the ones, this guy I was telling you about, Teddy, said, “Well, I can defer income.” So that was one of them. One of them was, as sometimes happen, you’d get an agreement to make an investment from an angel group or a high-net-worth individual, for example. And you’re very close to closing the agreement, and it falls out of bed for some reason or another. And you’ve made the mistake — one of the many mistakes — you’ve made the mistake of thinking it’s going to close around this day. And then it doesn’t. And now you don’t even know if it’s going to, because the problem that came up is one that isn’t immediately obvious how you’re going to settle it, because it’s a fundamental issue in the deal itself. And those are grim. Richard Miles: 22:25 It’s not in some little insignificant detail. Weaver Gaines: 22:28 No, they’ve thought it over and they need 45% of the company instead of 20% — something major like that, and you can say no, and they say, “Fine, I’ll pack up my bags and wish you the best of luck.” Or you can see if rolling over on your back and exhibiting your unprotected belly will work, or if there’s some other option that might help out. And then there’s the one where you have the fight with the big investor. He’s already invested. He now basically could control the company. He hasn’t yet. You’ve had this conversation that goes, “Well, I invested in you because I believe in the management of this company and I’m going to sit on the board, but I’m going to be influencing as a board member and not as a big investor.” And then you come to a point where you don’t agree with the big investor. And he says, “Well, have you forgotten who owns this amount of money in your company?” And you say, “No, have you forgotten that you said, when you invested, that you were going to rely on the management?” And he says, “No, and I stopped relying on you because I have the money and you’ll either do what I say, or you’re going to quit or get fired.” And “get fired” appeared to be one of the alternatives that turned out was the one that happened. But , uh, all kinds of grace, of course. Richard Miles: 23:35 Right. Weaver Gaines: 23:35 He took over and put one of his young proteges, the Swede — he was a Swedish guy. In fact, he was the only Swedish multi- millionaire I know who was an actual member of the Communist Party. Really interesting, very interesting, cultured man. So that’s an example of an actual death experience. Yeah. Right. Richard Miles: 23:52 Weaver, earlier , we were talking about institutional culture, and it kind of fascinates me and I think it does you as well. And one of the ways in which institutional culture changes is related to the size of the company. And so you’ve been in companies literally where there are a couple of people — that’s the way it starts, two or three people — and you hesitate to even call it a company, right? It seems more like a family or a frat party or something, right? Not an actual company, but then there’s a certain point at which you do have to start resembling an actual company with titles and sort of clear responsibilities and divisions. What does it do from a managerial standpoint? If you’re the leader, what things do you have to consciously do differently? Because you now, instead of two employees, you’ve got 20 or 200 employees. Weaver Gaines: 24:33 Yeah, well first I think, organically, there’s a theory of “span of control.” I’m sure you’ve heard of “span of control.” And some people say, “The most people you can really have usefully reporting to you is somewhere between five and seven, maybe 10.” So early on in a company — when there’s five or seven or eight or nine people in the company — one of the things that’s true is you pretty much all know what the other person’s strengths and weaknesses are. You don’t give a person with a weakness a task that you know plays to the weakness, and you don’t keep a person whose strength from doing that. But you all know what it is. And you, the CEO, can really have a material, substantive effect on all of the major decisions made by your company. And then it goes over that number. And two things happen when it goes over that number — up to about 25 in my experience — one of them is: it’s no longer the case that you really can do everything. And you mustn’t, you have to start relying on people. And sometimes that’s a different person. So the person who could handle lab operations, when there was one person in the lab, can’t handle lab operations when there are 10. It went outside their “Peter principle.” They’re not competent at lab management, as opposed to– Richard Miles: 25:40 Working in the lab. Weaver Gaines: 25:40 Working well in a lab with some scientists. The second thing is: you no longer know all of the strengths and weaknesses of all of the people in your company, although you should still know who’s good and who’s not, and the people who are reporting to you. And as a CEO, you must resist the temptation to meddle in the operations of the people who are now responsible for operations of their own. This is one thing that’s really disabling to people. It’s the sense that two things happen — they’re both bad. One is: you tend to make decisions where you don’t know what’s happening on the ground, like they do. And perhaps the worst aspect is: they start thinking, “Well, he’s going to be the one staying up at night, not me, because he’ll double-check my decisions. And if he doesn’t agree, he’ll tell me to change it.” And if you want a comfortable-running company, you can’t let people think they can move hard decisions to you that is within their area. So I tell people, “Look, there’s three kinds of decisions that affect you,” — and this starts at around 20 people — “One is the kind of decision I expect you to make. And I don’t expect you to tell me, because it’s the kind of decision you should make. And I don’t want to be bothered by being told you did it because it’s your decision. And the second is the kind of decision that I expect you to make, but I do expect you to tell me. It’s something I need to know, but I don’t need to prove it. And I’m not going to disapprove it. And the third: this is the one where you’re about to make a decision that could result in a hole below the water line,” — for all you Navy guys out there — “that one you have to consult with me in advance.” And inevitably, these people say, “Well, how will I know which one’s which?” And I say, “Well, you have to use your judgment.” And by the way, if you get it consistently wrong, you’re in the wrong job. So you have to get this sort of thing right. But I don’t want you to bring Category Two decisions, the kind you need to be making, to me for prior approval. I’ve got all the hard decisions already. You have those. Then, when a company gets to be about 100 or so, you need a lot more bureaucratic structure than you had before. You can get along with a lot of informal arrangements — doesn’t have to all be written down. Yeah, it’s useful to have an organization chart and so forth, but you don’t need it. It’s a bleak day in a company’s existence when it needs a Human Resources department, because that means there will be human resources — people there who are basically spiders or vampires, you pick the name, and that company is a completely different company. And the way you nurture some kind of camaraderie and corporate culture has to come from the top-down and it has to filter through the CEO — so there is no escape from this — to see if you can inculcate that with the janitor in the lab, who’s working for you and whose job is important too , but not at the level that you’re going to go in and pat him on the back and say, “Nice job, Junior, you know, I really appreciate your mopping.” ‘Cause, you know, it’s not gonna work. Richard Miles: 28:26 Right. Weaver Gaines: 28:26 And the other thing you have to do, in my opinion as a CEO, is you cannot rely for your information entirely on the people who are reporting to you. So you actually have to get up and walk down into the lab and say, “So how are things going here?” “We’re completely out of beakers.” “You’re out of beakers! Is that right? Well, does Joe know that?” “I’ve told him several times and we’re still out of beakers.” “Well that’s interesting. Okay. Thank you.” I mean, people will talk to you. Ross Perot, you’ve heard of Ross Perot– Richard Miles: 28:52 Yes, yes. Weaver Gaines: 28:52 Ross Perot ran a company and his cafeteria, you sat at the next seat at whatever table was open — they’re trestle tables — and he would sit down with whoever was at the table and say, “Talk to me.” This did two things. One: he learned what was going on. And the second thing is: the people who reported to him knew he would learn what was going on, which is also useful. So I think you can inculcate a culture from the top, from the beginning, that says, “We don’t lie. We don’t cheat. We don’t steal. And we’re not going to tolerate people who do those things.” You can make that happen throughout your company, regardless of its size. But the other stuff, the commitment to the task, the belief in what you’re doing, all of that stuff, has to be established when the company is small and then you hope it will permeate the company as it grows. Richard Miles: 29:37 Weaver, we were talking about this earlier in a different context: Contrary to popular belief, CEOs are not superhuman. Weaver Gaines: 29:43 Really? That explains a lot. Richard Miles: 29:46 I know, I’m bursting your bubble. Weaver Gaines: 29:47 That explains a great deal. Richard Miles: 29:49 And certainly when you start out and you founded your own company, as we’ve already talked about, there’s no shortage of things and worries to occupy your day. From the minute you get up to the minute you go to bed, you can be working in the company and often you do. At a certain point, that’s not a great personal-life-work-life-balance strategy — particularly if you’re married or you have children and so on. What are some of the things that you have seen, both good and bad? How should CEOs think about their commitments to their company, but then the commitments to the rest of their life? Because they’re just not probably gonna make it very far or, we’ll put it this way, they may have a successful company and ruin the rest of their life. What have you seen, in terms of successful strategies, to avoid that? And then, are there any horror stories you can relate in which people did the exactly wrong thing? Let’s leave out, say, the first 30 days in which, okay, you’re just going to be working 24/7. Everyone gets that. But let’s say you’re a little bit further along. You’ve got some employees, maybe even some revenue, but yet that feeling hasn’t gone away, that you gotta be Johnny-on-the-spot all the time. Weaver Gaines: 30:49 Let me start by saying when I started my career, it was as an associate lawyer at a big law firm on Wall Street. And there was no work-life balance. It was just work. And I think maybe half of the people who started in that law firm with me, including myself, were divorced in the course of six or seven or eight years. You basically communicated through notes on the refrigerator ’cause you were working till 10:00 many nights and almost every weekend. When you’re in a startup company, it’s more than 30 days that it’s like that. And you’re really asking the people who are around you — I don’t have children, so I didn’t have that particular problem, but I do have a wife that I cherish — and you’re basically saying, “Look, you’re signing onto this with me. Are you okay with that? You know what you’re signing on for? Because I can get a job that’s 9:00-5:00 or 9:00-7:30, if it’s a bigger job than that.” But it reminds me of when I was growing up, army wives — they knew what they had signed up for. Foreign service wives knew what they’d signed up for. They’re going to make a sacrifice too, and, in some cases it’ll be a big one, and you can’t do it alone, I don’t think. I mean, maybe for a bachelor, you can, but if you’re married, you have an intimate relationship with somebody or you have a close, personal relationship with somebody. They have to be on board with you too . Or you won’t be able to do what I think needs to be done to be a success in the first couple or three years of a startup company, because it’s going to be that long before you get to the place where you can take a breath and, “Where’s the dog?” “The dog died last month.” You know, I mean it didn’t, you know, we never had a dog. Richard Miles: 32:18 Right. Weaver Gaines: 32:20 I think that the thing that probably engenders more work-life balance is increasing exhaustion in age than it is any kind of conscious stratagem that I know of. And when I look around at the people who are successful CEOs, they may not have dark shadows under their eyes now, but they all went through it. And as I said, you need that team at home who’s willing to back your play and understands what’s involved. I don’t know any other answer to give you, Richard. I mean– Richard Miles: 32:48 No, it’s a good one. I found, just in my very limited experiences, there’s a step of humility and trust, once you start seriously delegating your responsibilities, right? Where when you first start out, you just think, “I’m the only one that really understands this company, this technology. And it’s so important — my understanding of it — that I really can’t ask somebody else to do it.” But at a certain point, you realize you’ve got to make that step. You’ve got to hire that person, mentor them, teach them, because otherwise you are a prisoner of your own creation, right? You will never break free– Weaver Gaines: 33:19 Never. Richard Miles: 33:19 … Until you are able to find and train– Weaver Gaines: 33:23 Community service. Richard Miles: 33:23 … Those people. What I find in many instances, and this is what’s really gratifying, is you find people who can not only do it, they can do it better. And that’s when you realize like, wow, if I really want to build something, first it’s a trust issue because you don’t think they can do it better. And then it turns out they’re really good at it — not always, obviously, there , there are some misfires. And I think that, to me, from what I’ve seen is the secret to building — as we said earlier today — something built to last is a recognition there are talented people out there that can do this job. I’ve got to find them, I’ve got to train them, and so on. And then you’re off to the races. Weaver Gaines: 33:55 All true with this corollary. It took me a while to realize that just because it was different, didn’t mean it was worse. So somebody who did something different from the way I would’ve done it, didn’t mean they were doing it worse. And in fact, my goal in hiring people was to hire people I thought could do it better. But the very first thing I had to get used to doing was the judgment that that was good enough. And then after a while , I got to thinking, “Well, maybe it’s not only good enough. Maybe it’s actually better than the way I would have done it.” But that first step, in which it gets done differently and you think, “Oh my God, you know, we’re doomed! This is not going to — I got to step back in here.” So good enough was the first thing to do. Richard Miles: 34:34 Yeah. Weaver Gaines: 34:35 But sometimes you can’t find somebody that you think is going to be better. You’re happy with somebody fogging a mirror because you have to fill this position. You need a quality person because otherwise you can’t pass the FDA audit. And this is the quality person you could get in Gainesville. This one. And the one thing you know for sure is he knows more about quality than you do, but that’s all you know, and not looking good, right? And recalls are going to be bad — that sort of thing. But even as people take up a bigger share of the burden, the burden itself is growing. So the company is getting bigger. And if you’re lucky enough to actually have a product, which has now been approved by the FDA, well, somebody has to be the manufacturing manager because you got to make sure it’s made. And then somebody else has to be the quality manager to make sure it’s made right. And if you’re dealing with a distributor , somebody has to be in charge of the distribution program in the marketing and sales operation. And you, the CEO, are responsible for all of those things, whereas before you had only the scientists and you and there’s still — notwithstanding Einstein and quantum mechanics — there’s still only 24 hours in the calendar day and you have to spend some of them sleeping, and you really do need to spend some time with the other person or persons in your life, even if they’re taking the short end of the stick for a while. And so sometimes it’s not possible to assemble the dream team right away, as you have to do with what you got. Richard Miles: 36:06 Weaver, one final question and that is: In any of your CEO experiences or leadership positions, have you ever gone in with sort of a personal exit plan? Do you say, “Okay, I’m going to do this, but I’m leaving after 10 years,” or “I’m leaving after we hit this certain milestone,” or is it more, “I’ll play it by ear. I’ll see how it goes. And if it turns out well, I stay.” How has that sorted itself out for you? Weaver Gaines: 36:26 I have never gone in with a personal exit plan, but you remember my planning skills are … defective. Um , more often than not, the exit has been attributed to an exogenous circumstance. Something happens, and it’s appropriate now for you to leave. So, in the first company, Ixion Biotechnology, when the Swedish investor took one of the two technologies and left the other one behind, left the stem cell one behind, and getting together with all of the scientists and everybody, we determined that it was going to take five more years and maybe $20 million to see if it would work. We decided that was not a good play, that we couldn’t justify taking $20 million of somebody’s money, knowing what we now knew. And by the way, that technology has never worked, although, other people have tried it. We could do the stem cell magic — we just couldn’t do it in commercial quantities, couldn’t make enough to sell. So that resulted in leaving. I mean, that’s what we did. In OBMedical Company, the failure of an investment involving one of our local Florida investment groups, — whose name I won’t mention over the air because I can’t mention it without running the risk of a lawsuit… Richard Miles: 37:33 We’re a lawsuit-free podcast here. Weaver Gaines: 37:35 Right . When that was over and it was necessary to go out and now solicit people who had already contributed when you told them, “Okay, we have a term sheet and we’re ready to move forward.” And now you’re going to have to go back and say, “We had a term sheet and we’re not ready to move forward because the other guy’s a jerk.” And everybody’s going to think, “Yeah, well, was he the only jerk in the room?” And my sister was dying of a glioblastoma. I said, “It’s time for a new person to come in — a fresh voice. You’ll put up with what CEOs put up with, which is the new CEO, can blame everything on you for a while ” . And in fact, that’s what happened: A really good guy came in that I recruited, and who pushed the company over the finish line till it was sold. I stayed on as an advisor, so that wasn’t planned. And this current company that we’re doing, I did deliberately promise Blythe Karow, who’s the CEO right now, who’s taken over — I’m the executive chairman, because she’s not quite the complete CEO, and I’m not quite the board chairman, but it’s gradually getting to the point where she’s going to be the standalone CEO. When that happens, when the board says, “Okay, she’s ready. Are you ready?” I’ll be ready. But that will be more planning than I’ve ever done before. And I think she’s probably ready now, but we need to get through this next round of financing and then we’ll see what happens. So, I don’t know, ambiguous answer to that question. Richard Miles: 38:52 Good answer, and well thought out. It’s been a great conversation, Weaver, and I feel charged up and ready to go. I’m going to go out and acquire a company. Weaver Gaines: 38:59 There you go. Richard Miles: 38:59 Now I’m sure that the job offers will flood in, I said — Weaver Gaines: 39:02 Any moment. Richard Miles: 39:03 And that ends our conversation, Weaver Gaines, so you’re ready to go, but I appreciate you coming on the show and look forward to seeing what’s next for you. Weaver Gaines: 39:09 Thank you, Richard. I appreciated being here. It was a lot of fun. Richard Miles: 39:12 Great. Thank you. Outro: 39:14 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

As a first-time founder and CEO, guest Vinny Olmstead reflects on what it felt like to start something new: “The one word I would use is just excitement. If you were taking a picture, I think you would see wide eyes and a smile on my face… In my early days, as I was looking at opportunities, I was hyper focused on solving some type of problem and spending a good amount of time to figure out what the solution would be for that type of problem.” Olmstead is the Co-Founder, Managing Director, and Partner at Vocap Investment Partners based in Vero Beach, Florida. Prior to Vocap, Olmstead was CEO of Bridgevine, an advertising technology company focused on customer acquisition. In this episode, Olmstead talks with host James Di Virgilio about his experience as a CEO and investor, and to share his advice for entrepreneurs that are trying to rise above the crowd to get funding. TRANSCRIPT: Intro : 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. Starting and running your own company. It’s not for everyone for those who have done it, it can be exhilarating, exhausting, and easily the hardest thing they’ve ever done. We decided to go out and talk to some of those people and find out what they’ve learned, what they’d repeat, what they’ll never do again. We’ll hear stories from their first year, then from the period, when they realize they’re going to survive and how they intend to position their companies for the future, we’ll find out what a CEO’s normal day days like, how they build and manage their teams, what it’s done to their personal lives. And finally, when is the time to move on, join us for CEO 101, a limited series of deep looks at people who are their own boss for better or for worse. This episode of Radio Cade, CEO101 features and interview Vinny Olmstead, Managing Director of the Florida based venture capital firm, Vocap Partners. James Di Virgilio: 0:59 Vinny, take me back to a time that was a first time for you, either as a company, founder, CEO, whatever you feel like was kind of that first experience. And describe for me what it was like to start something. Vinny Olmstead: 1:13 The one word I would use is just excitement. If you were taking a picture, I think you would see wide eyes and a smile on my face. And if you peel back the onion on that a little bit, in my early days, as I was looking at opportunities, I was hyper focused on solving some type of problem and spending a good amount of time trying to figure out what the solution would be for that type of problem. And I’m sure at one point it will get into learnings and how that evolves. But early on it’s a lot of them spend time doing some research. I came up through the finance rings . So a lot of times finance people think about businesses through the lens of Excel and spreadsheets, a little different than engineers do sometimes a little different than sales folks do at times, but me personally, came up through the finance route. So a lot of what I did was think through business model think through pricing, think through the market and those types of things, and try to think about how that solution could grow into something very large. And without knowing it , trying to take a look at competition and find to look at where the needs here . So I answered the question in a couple of ways, which is facial expression. And then a little bit of experience probably on and through the prism of CEO, that has a finance background, which is sometimes good. And sometimes it needs to be complimented. James Di Virgilio: 2:31 So you had mentioned very early on, I know you started some companies in your teens, let’s go back and visit that. Why start something then like what attracted you to a certain project at that stage of your life? Vinny Olmstead: 2:42 One of the businesses I’ve started in my teams was an events business. So I grew up in a small town in upstate New York called Binghamton, and I chartered buses and charged people. And we’d go to sporting events in New York or Buffalo or Pennsylvania or whatever. And it was pretty lucrative. So comically enough, simultaneously I had typical hourly jobs at McDonald’s and things like that. And all of a sudden I realized, wait, I can, A) have fun and B) charged people some okay money and C) make a lot more than minimum wage, which I think was $3.25 and so that blended a little bit of fun passion in a way to make money. James Di Virgilio: 3:19 Did that strike you at that age is something that was, I don’t want to say abnormal, but like how many of your friends were thinking the same way you were at that time? Vinny Olmstead: 3:27 I don’t think a ton. And I did a lot of the typical stuff, pre college of different types of whether it be mowing lawn business and hiring three other people through business and hiring five other people somewhere along the way. I got the leverage thing early on, which is good. Right? You can work hard at yourself and make an hourly wage early on. I realized either charging, not based on hour or leveraging other resources in order to make money made a bunch of sense. And that was sort of one thing that I saw early on you’re right. You don’t see it a bunch, but I also have a 18 year old son who’s about to graduate college and he’s got sort of the entrepreneurial bug also. And as I look at his peer group, a majority of them are willing to take that hourly rate and he’s taking a lot more risks and he’s sort of following that path a little bit, but back then, and now people like the idea of entrepreneurial-ism, but sometimes they don’t get the scale. And some of those important things that may make you at least outsize your profits and or outsize your business, those types of things. James Di Virgilio: 4:26 That’s really interesting. If you look at entrepreneurship through that lens is a way to view the world. And at the Cade Museum, we spend a decent amount of time creating a culture of innovation, which is to flip some of those hourly mindsets. If you will, into a, Hey, you also can create these things . And some people are born with it. I think a curiosity about how to improve things, but it also can be cultured. And so failure, something you mentioned is obviously a direct thing that many people, especially people that don’t want to dive into creating something, feel a question I get a lot also as an entrepreneur is , well , aren’t you afraid that the things you’ll do will fail. So for you, did you feel that, I mean, you started early, you started earlier than most people was failure ever, something that entered into your mind, or you just saw an opportunity to improve something. Vinny Olmstead: 5:10 Its funny. I don’t think I ever thought of it as failure per se, right. Things didn’t work. And I just went to the next thing and didn’t really worry about it early on. That didn’t matter. I wasn’t taking other people’s money. When you take other people’s money. It’s a little different, a little different situation. I didn’t really think about it as failure. I thought about it as an experiment and then I’m moving on. And again, early on it wasn’t about building the unicorn. It’s about building a cool business that made some money. Also early on it was a lot about where I was passionate or where the ecosystem is. I failed a bunch. Don’t get me wrong in a bunch of businesses that fail, but I never thought about it as failure. I thought about it as a stage. And then just move on and don’t worry about it. James Di Virgilio: 5:45 You had mentioned hiring some people in these early ventures. How did you go about hiring people back then? Was there a rubric? Was it a feeling what led you to make a decision on who to hire? Vinny Olmstead: 5:55 I don’t know if this happenstance or not happenstance. I’ll give you my early, I was 12 years old and I had a paper route. And so delivering newspapers as second route became open. And I said, Hey, I’m going to take that route and hire a couple of folks who filled in when I was on vacation, I can do the whole thing if I need to. And if not, I will have some folks help. And then I got another one after that. And so I think that was where I started learning. Holy cow , I can make a bunch more money. These folks think we’re making pretty good money, but I make more than I’m making some off of them. And then coupled with that, it’s not avant garde now, and I’m dating myself, but you used, it deliver newspapers every Monday night and you have to go collect for a week’s worth of newspapers. And back in those days, I pioneered the, I would just have people put the money in the envelope underneath their front doormat and I’d pick it up every Saturday morning and not have to talk with them. But as I delivered the papers, I would pick them up or I would have the employees pick them up. So two things you learn there is leverage people and then improve process wise. And a lot of people liked it because coming to their door at six o’clock at night, and then Monday when their little dinner wasn’t the most perfect time. And it just seemed to be easier for them process side, serendipitously hiring a few people. And I did that for, I think, four or five years subsequent to that also . So it wasn’t like one week it kept me going until I sorta hit my 16 or 17 year old age, newspapers were done for me at that point. James Di Virgilio: 7:12 Now, were your parents entrepreneurs, or did they view you as like a total anomaly? Vinny Olmstead: 7:16 A completed anomaly. My father was an elevator mechanic and my mother worked in the home health field in the payments area, but they weren’t entrepreneurial and they weren’t risk takers . And maybe that’s why I ended up as a little bit more of a risk-taker , but they were not at all. James Di Virgilio: 7:31 Did they have conversations with you? Vinny, what are you doing all this stuff for? You should be getting educated this way or focusing on these things or were they supportive? Vinny Olmstead: 7:39 They were actually pretty supportive like back into the newspaper days when I lived in New York and it was degrees below zero, and my father would take the minivan . And as opposed to me trying to bike or push a shopping cart around newspapers , and then he would drive me around. They were , they were very supportive in anything that I did. They sometimes wonder whose kid I was, because it wasn’t what their typical path was, but they were supportive the entire time. James Di Virgilio: 8:00 That’s great. It’s always great to hear that. Especially like you mentioned, you just sort of come out totally different and I can imagine as parents, they’re truly wondering where did Vinny come from? So, so you then obviously go on to a higher level of CEO ship. We’ll call it. Now, we’re calling a CEO in this case, really anything where you’re going to be running something, as you mentioned, either for other people there’s other investment or it’s yourself, and now it’s a much larger and full scale operations . So we’re still gonna focus on the early stages and what you would consider to be your first CEO role with that definition. So with that, how different was your first year as a CEO from those early years of startups? Vinny Olmstead: 8:36 It’s a good question. And it’s sort of the step two and sort of the path. So in the earlier days, it was sort of from the hip, solutions that revolved around things that I had worked passionate about in the early ages, in your teens and in your early twenties, it’s more about things that are going to the sporting events and chartering buses and all that of stuff. It was sort of a pastime and a passion, and it was more viewed as a opportunity for a period of time, but not for a long period of time. Whereas when you get into your twenties and your thirties, you’re more thinking about it from a career perspective and the mentality then was grow it and own it forever or own it for a long time. The mentality is changing a lot in the last 20 years in regards to wanting to grow it and sell it after seven years and becoming a unicorn and all that fun stuff. But at that point in my life, it was more about grow something sustainable. So that’s one, is your looking to grow something in perpetuity. And then there was just, I guess, that next iteration of polish around the PowerPoint presentations and the Excel spreadsheets and putting something down on paper versus just doing it, right. Which by the way, now that I’m in the VC world is very interesting. And seeing in that stage is that you often see doers and then you see folks who like to put things in Excel and PowerPoint, and they’re not as much doers. And so I would say my second phase was adopting not only the Excel and some of the skillset that I got through college and my early days as a CPA and accountant, it was the actual combining that with the doing mentality. And so again, so I think the themes there are, you look for something that’s sustainable in perpetuity. You look a little more institutional per se, and combining the doing with a little bit of the planning, I would characterize it that way. James Di Virgilio: 10:17 And if you’re looking at your time in this early CEO stage, this early venture stage, and obviously now you have a whole different set of experiences, which we will get to later as a VC now, but at that time, the biggest question on most people’s minds is how do you get funding? How does anyone get funding nowadays? How do people get funded? How did you get funded for the projects you were working on? Vinny Olmstead: 10:39 The way you get funded is evolved. And there’s a much more of an ecosystem, but I don’t think that the actual channels of getting funded have changed. Although funding has become much more ubiquitous. I would say, you’d go to the friends and family. And I put as much as my own money and my own salary as possible, which became easier later in life was much harder earlier in life. So you go out to those friends and family and at first, you’re a little bit nervous about asking and you should be, if you take it serious, but even then it was go to the friends and family and then ultimately go to that next institutional role. And then you start working up toward your C) and or your A) or your B) the most important thing to all of that is you gotta be networking every single minute. You have to be fundraising and networking every single second. Even if you’re talking about a solution, you have to excite people. And that took me a little while. It’s not that I mind asking for money, but it was a little bit uncomfortable and there’s nothing wrong with asking for funding for something that you really believe in. And you’re really passionate about. So it was the same sort of ecosystem back then, the friends and family seed and starting into A) and B). The problem then there was just wasn’t as much money the world didn’t watch shark tank and understand all this entrepreneurial-ism and stuff. So it was harder to find outlets. There wasn’t really much online, back then and all that. So it was there and it was sort of similar. It just wasn’t as easy to get to nor was there as plentiful amount of money out there as there is today. James Di Virgilio: 12:02 Yeah, the brand awareness of entrepreneurship was obviously much lower. And as you mentioned, the tools to access, it was much smaller. If you could go back in time to these stages you’re discussing right now. And this is, I think a good one for really anything that pops into your mind. First kind of the first thing that pops into your mind, what wisdom would you give yourself at that stage? Learning everything you’ve learned now. Vinny Olmstead: 12:22 These are all things that are somewhat standard that you would think through, but don’t be afraid to hire great people and try to understand what great means. And don’t be afraid to hire people that make more money than you, or have a lot more experience. And that’s the thing we never with a lot of entrepreneurs, they really struggle with that, acknowledging that you don’t have deep experience around repeatable sales processes or deep knowledge around product requirements. There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t have the pride to think that as CEO, you need to know everything and that you need to have the experience in every single verticalized aspect of your business. Go get the right people. And on the heels of that real quickly, one of my mistakes with one of the companies that did well with and sold. I had the opportunity to take a lot more money. And I didn’t, and it definitely inhibited the growth of my company, and I wish I would raise more capital. So get the right people. And I was very prudent with the money, and I was very in tune to my investors, but I should have taken more. James Di Virgilio: 13:17 Yeah its interesting, we’re going to talk a lot about funding as we get towards the end of this. And I have so many questions on that, myself being a finance person and investor, and we will get to that one. So save, that for further probing, let’s talk about the middle years, and this can be the middle for you as you think of your own career and experience in life, but the middle years as a leader, how did your normal day to day change from these earlier years? Vinny Olmstead: 13:38 Yes. So the most interesting part in all of that, the theme there was how to let go, because it’s sort of this interesting thing. It’s not as though I couldn’t do a bunch of this stuff better than select employees, but you have to let go and let the leverage down. For example, back to when I was on the paper , boy , you have to let them go, let them deliver the route , make sure it’s on time. You can’t walk with every single person or ride with every single person. And it’s the same theory when you’re running a business, it was a little bit harder to let certain things go. I was pretty good at Excel and financial modeling. I could do the Excel, but it was dumb for me to do the Excel because I had other people that could, you have to let go. So the middle years is about where are your priorities and allocation of time are best spent in order to create the greatest value. And that’s easy to say, but it’s really not hard to do personally. And for the CEOs that we see, even in our investments today. James Di Virgilio: 14:29 Optimization with your time, your own focuses, right? You recognize when you reach a certain age that no matter how smart you are, you just cannot do everything. And on top of that, there’s certain things you should do that will yield more, not obviously just for yourself, but also for your team, for the project you’re working on. How do you begin to trim away? Some of those margins, some of those things like how do you create a funnel to say this is priority one task? And this one I should probably think about delegating. Vinny Olmstead: 14:54 It goes back to my point around hiring some of the right people, but it’s not always about hiring the right people. It’s also about the mentality of that. There’s a lot of different ways to do it. One thing I see that works pretty well and worked for me, there’s this thing called the entrepreneurial operating system. It’s basically a management system where you meet with your team quarterly and you review your mission, vision, values, all that fun stuff once a year, but you go through what priorities are. And it’s sort of a healthy way with no titles to get into a room with your top management team and to help prioritize. It was fairly enlightening for me to hear people say, you shouldn’t be doing this. You should be doing that. And you can still do ELS, or you can bring in a facilitator either way. It was a good way to prioritize . And then it was a good way for folks not to feel uncomfortable, to say, you need to not allocate your time to doing all that Excel spreadsheet or drawing out the HTML for the buy flow of a commerce and things that you shouldn’t be doing. It’s okay for people to interview you and say, where are you thinking about interviewing? You are having conversations about where you want it to go, but you have to let go. So that’s just one example of ways to sort of take care of that. And the second one was I, I didn’t accept which I wished that I did it. Must’ve been a seed investor with the company bridgevine, which is a Florida company. We were, I think 500, I think seven times fastest growing 57, the highest. But one of the things he kept telling me to do is hire sort of a chief of staff to keep you organized. And I don’t know why I just was stubborn and didn’t do it. And now, whereas what we tell our CEO is, Hey, you know , hire a chief of staff to help you organize. So when you go to these meetings and you have follow up , they can really make it happen. Or if you need a quick project done or research on competitor or market, you have somebody to do it. So you’re not sitting there doing that. So two things I think helped facilitated one, which I adopted. One of which I refused was the EO’s system. And then also the chief of staff and chief of staff starts getting pertinent when companies sort of are starting up into the 5 million and above in revenue, because that’s also a time where it starts getting complex to scale. James Di Virgilio: 16:50 Yeah. And that’s great. You segwayed perfectly to my next question, which is during these middle years, how do you go about handling, growing and expanding? Oftentimes it happens rapidly and oftentimes the CEOs may or may not have had a lot of experience with handling something that’s growing that quickly or scaling that fast. Vinny Olmstead: 17:07 Its a good point. And when our CEO Bridgevine, it went from a million to six to 11 to 18 million in revenue, over five years, growing from nothing to one and going up, and it was good because a software company, but it also leveraged the early days, early days, the mid days of the web and online demand generation and all of that, but not easy. And then the hardest part about it was the people part of it. And it wasn’t only that you’re hiring t he r ight people. It’s that people that had generalist jobs t hat had five jobs, they may have had five different responsibilities. And as you get larger, you need to be able to motivate them, to be excited about taking a more narrow role that does more, as opposed to running HR and p roduct. Now you have to put p roduct in a separate bucket o nto itself. So I think managing people A) are they capable of scaling? If they’re not, they may have a VP level, but should be a director. Can you put them into a director role and then how to narrow what their responsibilities. That was the hardest part. I think about the scale, getting the infrastructure in place for f our data centers and all that was fine. There’s a lot of other things that were they’re hard, but they’re not that hard. A nd the people part is by far the hardest part. James Di Virgilio: 18:16 What was the most rewarding experience or set of experiences when you reflect back on your middle years? Vinny Olmstead: 18:20 The fun part of all of this is creating a culture that is great to work in and creating a culture. When I described earlier, my eyes getting open in a smile on my face is trying to create an environment where it may not be because you’re running the company, but it may be because you’re running products that you have the big eyes and smile on your face because you’re really creating something. I think that’s probably the best illustration. James Di Virgilio: 18:46 That is the joy, right? This idea of creating, improving . There’s nothing like it. And I think even people that wouldn’t say they’re entrepreneurial, if you can kind of get granular and say, well, let’s talk about a time in your life. You created something. There’s always this different level of passion and connectivity to it. All right, let’s move to now, we’re going to call it now so that you can call these your mature years. Of course, maturation never stops. Let’s just go with now, how is your role now different than it was in the middle years in the early years? Vinny Olmstead: 19:12 So a couple of things there. So in my later years, I went from operator to a venture capitalist and this was about nine years ago. And when I started, I actually was CEO and started the fund at the same time with the blessing of the board. But I would call that some of my more mature years versus earlier. And so how is it different? One of the things that was very different in my middle years and now mature years, and this is for the whole industry is there’s a lot of ways to grow businesses fast because of all of the different plugins solutions out there. And so when I coach CEOs, or when I look at businesses as an example, I don’t want them to create a new commerce platform. They can go plug in Shopify. And so one of the things I think I thought about earlier on is you take everything under solvers and you have to do everything yourself. In my later years, I adopted more to, Hey, I can plug stuff in and the value is more speed to market than it is sometimes proprietary type items, like a commerce platform as an example. So whenever they agreed in the Lunchables, which was like Oscar Meyer and an Oreo cookie from Dole , the Lunchables is a great idea. You don’t have to own every component of it in order to get to market faster and perform better. And as life goes on, both with technology evolving and adoptability, it’s , it’s more of a norm now, but it wasn’t in 2011. It is becoming that right now. But it’s the embracement of that aspect of solutions that can plug into your solutions. James Di Virgilio: 20:39 And you are just like nailing every segue. So here’s another one. What are some of the new challenges CEOs face today that perhaps they were not facing 20 or 25 years ago? Vinny Olmstead: 20:50 That’s a great question. When I look across my portfolio and we back great CEOs and they sort of bifurcated into two buckets, which is some with less experience and some with more experience. And I think one of the hardest parts of the ones with less experience is the true accountability and expecting people to work as hard as you’re expected to work. It’s a little bit millennialism is a little bit of a challenge. And so I think that’s the number one difference that I don’t know if I didn’t tolerate it, or if the norms were different, but now it’s often tough to get to that accountability and to have people and accountability states. That’s a lot of where we spend our time. A lot of management teams, these CEOs make 50, to hundred thousand bucks and all of a sudden they need to bring in somebody who runs XYZ. That makes $225,000. There is a lot of concern and consternation about bringing in people who make more than you and have more experience. And we spent enormous amount of time having those types of conversations and say, you need to balance your equity with what your overall goal is and your priorities. And so that’s the second part. This challenge was challenge to me too . And it’s a challenge when I worked with our CEOs now. James Di Virgilio: 22:01 We could do an entire podcast on team building and culture and pay and meritocracy. And that exact principle of does there need to be this triangle hierarchy where the person X , Y , Z makes more than someone else, or is there room, as you’re mentioning to have a more market-based or creative, or just what’s best for the venture mindset. So how do you handle the pressure of the media of public opinion of your own employees? How is that handled as you become a notable CEO with prestige? Vinny Olmstead: 22:29 So one is you’re going to have to face the fact that the accountability is on your shoulders and it’s human nature for your employees, whomever, they report up to whether you’re one of the greatest CEO or whether you’re Elon Musk or others. People are still going to have fun with you a little bit. And sometimes you have to have some pretty thick skin just don’t let that part of it bother you. It’s just part of it. The other part, which follows you as being early to middle to late stages is it’s great to be friends with everybody, but you have to be cognizant of how you handle employees and people inside the workforce. It’s human nature to have certain things in common with people inside your organization, but it may look like you’re favoring them just because you both like Florida Gators and whatnot. So there’s those aspects that you have to be very cognizant of. And you have to separate yourself a little bit. You may not be able to cope with certain people and not other people. And so types of that hierarchy. So it doesn’t create imbalance or odd things inside and thick skin because they are going to have fun here especially they like to have fun. James Di Virgilio: 23:24 Yeah, it definitely really important for leaders to have thick skin . That seems to be perhaps a quality. I’m sure you’re spending more time with your CEOs today that you’re working with and maybe you would have in years past. Vinny Olmstead: 23:33 Yes. There’s a good example. There’s a product that I created at Bridgevine. And I think 80% of the company disagreed with me on wanting to roll it out. I knew it was the right thing to do, and it ended up being the valuable aspect of the business, but it was a turbulent time. It wasn’t like a all out civil war, but it was, I don’t understand that we shouldn’t be doing this. We should be focused over here. And I just said, and this is my decision going to the board. This is my decision. This is what I think is right. There is dissent . And it ended up paying off, staying true and staying part in what you believe it was tough, but ended up being a good outcome. James Di Virgilio: 24:10 Yeah and that is the role obviously of a leader is to go out there at times. And if you really believe in what you’re doing and you think it is best that you have to put yourself out there with it, otherwise, nothing great is going to get done. So what was one of the most challenging experiences that you’ve had rather recently, it’s really just been a difficult spot. Vinny Olmstead: 24:29 We’ve had a shutdown on business and that’s never fun or stop supporting a business, which is never fun because you’d go and you back these entrepreneurs, like even in COVID times, there are two different outcomes for our companies. One was they thrive because everything’s coming satisfied. And another instance COVID, wasn’t good for the market. And I don’t want to tip off with the company is but sitting down and saying, I can’t fund you anymore. If the business is going to take two to three more years to come back and you’re going to have to either cut back your salary. People salaries, certain things, but I also invest on behalf of other investors as a fund. I have limited partners who invest in me. I can’t support you . I think you’re great. Your business model was good. Last year. Your business model has become less good this year and I have to move forward, I’ll support you, two need to be on the board, but financially I can’t throw good money after that. And that’s a hard conversation. James Di Virgilio: 25:24 Yeah, thats an excellent example of a very real world . And sometimes out of our control, right, as entrepreneurs scenario. So now let’s launch into this fourth piece, which is a strategy phase. So this can encompass any part of your time in life. I think obviously as a VC, a lot of this stuff is going to apply to the questions I’ll ask because there’s so many interesting things happening. And of course you’re based in Florida, which a lot of people would describe as a pioneering very early VC world, where perhaps 20 years from now, the state looks very different. So when it comes to strategy, you launch your VC firm a decade ago, essentially, or almost a decade ago, and you have to create a strategy, VCs, have different strategies, different niches, they work in, how did you create yours? Vinny Olmstead: 26:05 And that’s a great question because even when I was on the other side of receiving capital, I never thought there was like a strategy behind venture capital. And now I’m realizing that there is very much so a strategy behind venture capital and like our portfolio companies, that strategy has to really evolve. So I’m on my third fund. And if I go back to the first bond versus the third fund, our strategy has evolved fairly significantly. So when the first bond that was sort of more of a reactive fund, it was sort of doing it fun , sort of doing it reactively. Didn’t have the infrastructure of the relationship because it was coming hot off the heels of many years as an operator, as opposed to an investor. And I was investing in seed A and B stage companies and they’re around technology. So at a high level, and my strategy was a pretty big umbrella technology. So fast forward into phase two, I started really narrowing that down, which is I could provide the best value for folks are in the one to $10 million range, had a couple of good employees, had some product markets fit . And so it started really focusing around A stage investing. And although I had done some B to C stuff, the B2B SAS type of some things seem to be the companies that were doing better. So went to that next level of, okay, I’m going to invest in Baystate businesses that are doing SAS and or repeatable revenue. And then we get into three and I’m like very similar to other companies. My fun one was sort of by myself , my current CFO and partner, Wendy Coya and a junior person, fun too I had brought on another managing director who also was an operator and sold his company. So we were like-minded in that regard. And he was thinking about going out and doing the angel round funding. And he decided to come in and I said, look, I went through that, don’t do it. Jump on board, with me. We have very similar mindsets, but it caused us to have a lot more interrupt in strategic conversations, adding that second very experienced person. And so if you fast forward to fund three, our team goes off campus quarterly, and it’s all around strategy . So we went from sort of haphazard to somebody structured . So now it’s very clear A stage enterprise software around the future of work around transforming healthcare and around the science of selling. And we are disciplined along those three. And I imagine when we got to fund four , it’s going to be the same thing. So the common theme is that even VCs have to continue on the strategy, not just similar to the portfolio companies that I have, and they have to evolve with the times and it comes through with the I’m sure we can talk a little bit about funding, but even the world , the funding has changed series A used to be 3 to 6 million. Now it’s sort of seven to 12. And so our strategy has to be smart on that side. James Di Virgilio: 28:42 That was perfect in fact, you answered multiple other questions by telling me the story of how the model and strategy changed over the years, which is really the goal and how it will change in the future. And I think that is a key mark, obviously, of someone who is still highly in tune with innovation and not stagnation. And recognizing that professionalization of something is a constant refinement. You never reach your end goal, but you should always be getting better and more refined, more processed. And not as obviously what you described, speaking of funding, there’s two questions I want to ask here. One are VCs this big, bad, evil empire that is spitting good ideas and entrepreneurs out of it, or is it a necessary nurturing, useful, helpful tool? Vinny Olmstead: 29:22 So I was on both sides of that and I agree venture capitalists behind me. And I was savvy enough to know, I think when they were helping, when they weren’t helping. And when I had my VC board, I had one guy who was always cognizant of balance sheet, another guy who was very good at sales, another guy who was thinking strategy, but I sort of leverage them and use them that way. I didn’t use them all the same way. And so I had a very positive experience on that. There are a lot of nightmare scenarios with VCs , and I think it’s a quasi healthy tension, right? Because as a VC , you want to be friends with the CEO , but you have to push them a little bit. And there’s always tension with pushing them, hire that chief operating officer, because you need it. And well, I don’t want them to , I only want a director of operations. I get that. But one year from now, you understand that six months for that CEO to even understand your business. And you’re going to be a scale on a size where you’re going to grow into this particular, he or she in order to move forward. So if you went out and did a survey of my CEOs, I think they would all be pretty favorable, but also state that there are times of tension and disagreement. And it’s how you handle that tension and disagreement. And then the obvious is when companies aren’t doing well, VCs plan management management, blames the VCs and how you handle that, which is sometimes potentially switching out a CEO and sometimes selling a company and at sometimes putting some more, million dollars in to let them fulfill their strategy. And so it’s like everything in life, it’s communication and how you communicate. And there is definitely a healthy tension. There there’s been bad actors out there in the marketplace. And look , there is dissension. Sometimes you told me you were going to hit this amount of revenue. Now you’re going to spend twice as much and get paid half amount of revenue. We do have an issue here because this is what you supported. And so there are those moments also. James Di Virgilio: 31:08 Let’s talk about philosophically yourself, your VC venture, how you view things, of course, because we can’t reductively say what all VCs do. But in your case, when you’re taking on a new project, are you thinking more along the lines of I’m taking on this project? Because I believe in it, I want to be able to help this entrepreneur funding as a part of that. I want them to grow because growing will help the world around me. Or are you looking at it straight numerically saying, I think this company is going to make a ton of money if they do X, Y, Z, and I’m in it to make sure that the money is made. Vinny Olmstead: 31:36 I think it’s somewhere in between, right? So I know it’s a huge and growing market, but there are a lot of huge and growing markets that we won’t go into because philosophically we don’t agree with them. So I want to believe in the company’s missions and visions. Otherwise, even if it’s a great opportunity, I won’t invest there. So I wouldn’t go through and say, I have a hard rule of I’m not investing in X, Y, Z, but when it really comes down to it, you have to believe in the mission and the vision of the company. It’s not pure economics . It truly isn’t . I was invested in a great company called your cause, which was basically a payments platform for social good. And they did things like integrating the HR systems of AT&T and enabling the employees of AT&T tens and tens and tens of thousands of them to give whether it be to their favorite not-for-profit or when Katrina hit or whatnot. And I loved the mission, the CEO and I who’s a great guy. He went and believed in his passion, we sometimes hit clash heads a little bit, but I loved his mission, vision and the purity of it. And healthcare ones we invest in are all around chronic care. And as a matter of fact, one of the recommendations made to the CEO there at a company called Time Doc that I invested in on the board is they’re helping people with chronic diseases, through a software platform, enabling physicians. And they also have caregivers that help somewhat. And I’m like, I want to hear how you’re helping people. I want to hear how you’re helping the person, that they didn’t realize that they were deaf or couldn’t get to the doctor or couldn’t get food and you guys facilitated it. So I think for us, at least at Vocap, yes, we are capitalists . And we are sort of trying to make somewhere between five and 10 times off of each investment, knowing that 30% to 40% of them might fail. But I do think that if they were not within our value system, we would not be interested in the business. James Di Virgilio: 33:18 And it’s really interesting. And again, it could be another podcast for a different day, just talking about freedom, capitalism, private property funding, ideas, this idea that obviously, if somebody makes a gazillion dollars, it’s not a zero sum game. It’s not a fixed pie. They’re not taking money from someone else to get there. And the only way for that to happen is for people to use whatever they’ve created. So there is a level obviously of marketability and market growing that if you believe in what you’re doing, and of course you’re doing things ethically in the right way, the larger you become, the more people you can help theoretically. So a lot of that stuff, again, different discussion for a different podcast. Vinny Olmstead: 33:50 Thats a long podcast . James Di Virgilio: 33:51 Yeah. That’s a long one. That’s a big one that I love that kind of high level stuff. But for now let’s get granular and talk about funding here in Gainesville, Florida, the University of Florida obviously now leads really the country with incubator companies. And so it has not quite had the success of turning some of these incubator companies into the huge names we know yet, perhaps one day that will happen. But funding is on everyone’s mind, especially in the state of Florida, where there are tons of patents being had every single year. Obviously again, we talked about at the top of the show, Florida, as an emerging VC area, you’re here, you’ve been working in it. How hard is it to get an idea funded? It seems like if you were to panel a lot of young startup companies, they would feel like it’s almost impossible to get their idea funded. How hard is it really to get an idea funded? Vinny Olmstead: 34:35 That’s another long fun conversation. When I raised capital here for my Bridgevine company, back in early 2000’s, I couldn’t get anybody in the state of Florida or the Southeast interested at all. I had to go to the Northeast in order to raise capital, fast forward several years. And there are a good number of whether it be Vocap or Los Olas or [inaudible] is on like fund number five or six or whatever they’re on. And there’s a lot more ecosystems in Florida and in the Southeast. So there is more capital than 20 years ago when I was out raising money in the state of Florida before I was in Florida, I was in Seattle, we raised two and a half million dollars. And that was sort of a startup on steroids. You wouldn’t find public on that. And then I came to Florida and it was really, really tough. I mean, I couldn’t even get on the state of Florida venture I’m on the board and have been for 10 years and love it. It was hard on the state of Florida. There wasn’t as much money. I still think we’re not quite there yet. Right. So I think we’re still five years away from having the capital in place that other places have. And so it is hard. I live in Vero Beach, Florida. I had an open office in Atlanta group talent reasons. And because it’s easier later on to sell the company and find companies or investors to invest Florida sort of a distributed place, right? There’s no clear ecosystem. And geography is a big deal. New York, Austin , San Francisco, Austin, very, very concentrated. Whereas Florida’s ecosystem on entrepreneurs are spread out and VCs are inherently lazy and they don’t want to go to Gainesville and they don’t want to go to a Ocala. Steve Case is doing a wonderful job of trying to illuminate, all the great ideas of the secondary cities. And I think we’re getting there on that front. And I think geography is a little bit of a disadvantage. And again, I’m skewed toward thinking about tech versus broader ideas. I look at the biotech space personally, and look at stuff like that, but geography has an implication . So I think we’ve come a long way. And we still have a lot of opportunities over the next five years. And then you’ll relay this umbrella of holy cow. There are a lot of financial people coming to the state of Florida and that is going to be nothing but hell . So I’m in this town called Vero Beach, Florida. And we happened to have, I think the number one place of Ex CEOs of fortune 500 companies, a lot of them happen to have okay amount of money. And that’s how I raised both my early seed money for my company and then also my venture money. So the more you get some of these folks relocating to Florida, which seems to be happening in a rapid fashion, I think the money will continue to follow, especially for the seed side of things. As more family offices are down here and more intellectually curious people who understand the finance world are down here. So I have a lot of optimism now and going forward. And the only other point I’d make also is the hard part is there are so many new companies coming out. It’s hard to get through the noise right? Years ago, a few people wanted to be entrepreneurs. Now everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. So there’s increasing supply. The problem is there’s also increasing demand and you need to truly innovative and you need to figure out ways to really show your differentiation. James Di Virgilio: 37:19 Another great segue. Before I ask you the last question, my grandparents live in Johns Island I’m my grandfather was an entrepreneur and he was super proud of the fact that Johns Island had zillion Ex CEOs and whatever the case was. Vinny Olmstead: 37:32 Oh so awesome. Yeah. I can clearly see it from my window right here. James Di Virgilio: 37:36 Yeah I figured. Yeah. Every Christmas actually my family, we drive across the state from Sarasota to Vero Beach and spend an evening. So that was my Christmas time. But , um, the last question and this one is going to be the one you just, again, segues perfectly into is all right. There’s a lot of people starting companies. There are a lot of good ideas out there. What is your advice for entrepreneurs to get funded? What are some things they can do to rise above the crowd? Vinny Olmstead: 37:57 Yeah. So a couple of things on that front one, there’s a lot of great companies and a lot of new to companies. You’ve got to look yourself in the mirror and not be a me too . Go look at the competitive space and identify what your differentiation is. As I mentioned earlier, never stop networking. You are always raising capital and you don’t want to go to every single social event with your friends and just talk about your own business. You have to have some EQ to understand you have to have an EQ piece of it, but always be thinking about how you can network through to people. And when all of this noise, you have to be going after a big market with a unique product. Otherwise we don’t care. The reality is we want a large market and you can have a large niche, right? We have a supply chain company that does primarily around cold goods. That’s growing very quickly. And the whole market’s huge niche market. That’s perfectly fine. One of my board members, this guy by the name of Ted Leonsis who sold his company, to the first sale to all these partners, with Steve Case, he owns the Capitals and the Wizards and is just the greatest entrepreneur in the world. But he sat me down and said, you need to have your ten second pitch, your one minute pitch and your three minute pitch and you need to have it so crisp and so clear. And he seems like it’s easy, but it wasn’t as easy stated. And he’s abused need to have all of those incredible cadence and you need to convince me you’re passionate about it. And it was a great piece of advice for me. It’s one of the few things that I tell my CEOs, give me bad news as fast as you possibly can. I don’t care when I get the good news and have that cadence down, but how you talk about your company and the 30 sec, minute, five minute version. And so that would be my advice. Also, it sounds simple, but if I’m going to get a long complex story and what you’re trying to do, you cut off a lot of people. James Di Virgilio: 39:35 That’s often stated. And as you said, because of that, it almost becomes like a trope , but the reality it’s so true. Robert Einstein once said that you make something as simple as possible and no simpler. And I think that’s also completely true with a pitch for your idea or your company for a million different reasons. So that’s great advice and low-hanging fruit and something. I’m sure that you see all the time. I see all the time here in Gainesville, is this not often done? And it’s not done well and not surprisingly, most of the companies that tend to go places are very good at that for a variety of reasons. Well, Vinny, I appreciate you spending an hour with us. I think we got a lot of great stuff in this segment, for sure. Lots of good insights. I certainly enjoyed talking with you. Vinny Olmstead: 40:10 Likewise. I look forward to visiting the Cade Museum and visiting you all up there. So I appreciate the time. Outro: 40:16 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida . This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Recalling his time in the radio business, guest Lew Dickey tells host James Di Virgilio that, as a CEO, it is important to recognize that you are often forced to take things as you go: “The landscape is changing—you might be able to see a little bit around the corner, but nobody has perfect vision into the future.” Currently, Dickey is the Co-Founder and Chairman of DM Luxury, America’s largest regional magazine company. However, this piece of advice rings especially true considering his background as the former CEO of Cumulus Media, the nation’s second largest radio company. In this episode, Dickey remembers the quick and drastic shift into the digital realm, a time when somebody like Steve Jobs showed up to Stanford University with his latest Apple products and showed them to eager students, including Dickey, who took inspiration from those moments—as well his own father’s history in broadcasting—to create his own company. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: (00:01)Starting and running your own company. It’s not for everyone, but for those who have done it, it can be exhilarating, exhausting, and easily the hardest thing they’ve ever done. So we decided to go on and talk to some of those people and find out what they’ve learned, what they’d repeat and what they’ll never do again. We’ll hear stories from their first year, then from the period when they realized they’re going to survive and how they intend to position their companies for the future. We’ll find out what a CEO’s normal day is like, how they build and manage their teams, what it’s done to their personal lives. And finally, when is it time to move on? Joining us for CEO 101, a limited series of deep looks at people who are their own boss, for better or for worse. Intro: (00:40)Today’s guest CEO, Lew Dickey came to prominence as co-founder and CEO of Atlanta-based Cumulus Media, the nation’s second largest radio company. He is also the co-founder and chairman of DM Luxury, America’s largest regional magazine company. James Di Virgilio: (00:56)Lew, take us back to your first year, starting your venture. How did it feel to take on such a role and how did that necessitate some changes in your life? Lew Dickey: (01:05)It’s interesting because I had a market research business that I was running and had started that when I got out of school back in 1985, and that business I was working for all the major television groups and radio groups across the country doing market research and strategy consulting. My sort of purview was nationwide. I was operating in dozens and dozens of markets from the largest to the smallest providing consulting services and market research, consumer insights. So I understood the landscape and I knew a lot of the owners and managers across the country. And I was doing some work for early stage venture capitalists that own some stations in the Caribbean, and they were a mess and I was down there helping this person try to get them figured out. And I was talking about the telco act, which had just passed. This was in 1996, the telco act that had passed beginning of that year and it was revolutionary. And it’s actually still the statute that governs telecommunications today. And I felt that there was an anomaly in the rules that made for an arbitrage where the mid-size and smaller markets actually could benefit from greater concentration based on the rules than the largest markets that may have 50 signals in them. And I said, look, the capital is sort of chasing the largest markets, and that was Infinity back in the day and Evergreen and a few others. And I said, they’re chasing the largest markets or is it a little more uncontested in the midsize and smaller markets? Lew Dickey: (02:24)So I was explaining this to the VC and his response was, I don’t know anything about radio, clearly based on what you’re seeing with this mess, we’ve got in the islands here, but I do have some connections and we could raise some capital, it sounds like an interesting idea. And so we had that discussion on a long flight back from Barbados. And at that stage, we put it into action and we went out and put together a business plan to do this, to be a consolidator and midsize and smaller markets. Obviously we didn’t have any radio stations. We started with zero at the time. Now my father had some stations in Toledo, Ohio, and then we had as a family, some stations in Atlanta, Georgia. And then I had purchased earlier in 96, a station in Nashville with my brothers. And so we had three markets going into this, but they were in Atlanta, Nashville or larger than the markets we were going to go after, but Toledo would definitely fit, which was my father’s stations that he had had since 1965. So we launched the business, raised about $60 million from some insurance companies and state pensions and a private equity group out of Nations Bank, which is now obviously B of A and got started. But you start, you don’t have any stations. So you have to buy radio stations. You can’t start them from scratch, they’re licensed. So we went out and because of my knowledge and relationships across the country, that’s what I was tasked to do. And so I was on the road nonstop in essence, meeting people and reacquainting myself with others and leveraging relationships with some capital to buy radio stations. And so we bought a number of markets and continued to roll this up. And also keep in mind that to take everybody back to those days, you had top line growing like crazy. You had consolidation happening, and there was no digital competition to speak of here. See, you had a business that was growing nicely on the top line, you had great operating leverage and multiples were increasing. Lew Dickey: (04:08)And so we started this thing in May of 97 after the capital was raised, started doing transactions in 97, and obviously it was at a breakneck pace in 98-99. We took the business public regular way IPO in July of 98, and then did a follow on offering in 99. We were rolling assets up pretty quickly. And so we were scaling this business fast. And then by the end of 99, we had enough critical mass that we now had to shift from sort of purely acquiring mode, just a deal machine, to really an operating business. And so I then shifted my role and became the chairman CEO of the business in early 2000, January of 2000. And we didn’t think about the early years of this. So I was 39 and was a first time CEO, first time public CEO. And we had a ton of radio stations that posed a set of challenges in that we had acquired dozens and dozens and dozens of assets from disparate owners, disparate cultures, competing factions inside of a market. And so the challenges for integration enormous. I remember on the IPO going around and we were meeting with prospective investors and they would ask about integration challenges. And it was somewhat lost on me, obviously, having not been through that. And everybody was learning real time, by the way. There was no handbook on this because the flood gates just opened in 1996, before that you could own 1:00 AM on FM in a market. So there was no consolidation. And so everybody was learning real time and, and as they say, sort of drinking through a fire hose. And so the integration risks or challenges were enormous and could not be foreseen. At least we weren’t smart enough to understand that. And so that was really job once I took over, which was to in essence, create a homogenous operating culture and take all of these sometimes warring factions within a market. Lew Dickey: (05:58)You might buy five radio stations in a market from five different owners, and everyone had a different idea of how they wanted to do things, how they kept their books, what they thought of the other people who was going to survive, who would the manager be. And so these were a lot of challenges; now magnify that by 30, 40 times because of the number of markets that we were in, and it was an enormous amount of work. So on top of that, you also had to run the public company. So I was told early on by one of my mentors, Lowry Mays, who was enormously successful and had Clear Channel back then, now called iHeart. He told me early on, he says, “you’ve really got two jobs here; you’ve got to run the company and you got to run the stock, and sometimes they’re two entirely different jobs and you’ve got to make sure that you’re focused on both of them at all times. And I thought that was good advice. And so I did my best to heed it. And we had to effectively write the rule book in terms of how to bring all of these back to the operation side, how to bring all of these disparate radio stations and cultures and management styles, as they say in systems, and try to homogenize them and try to create a best practices approach to create something that we could scale with as we were going to continue to grow. And oftentimes it was very unpopular and people don’t like change particularly in a mature industry. And so we had to navigate those challenges and a lot of people, in essence, like to design their own jobs and you can’t do something like that when you have to have a smart division of labor, if you’re going to really operate the business as efficiently as possible, which is what the street was looking for. Lew Dickey: (07:27)The other side of the job, to make sure that you had the operating margins that they were looking for in the operating leverage, which is just a fancy way of saying, as you grow a dollar of revenue, you grow a greater percentage of that in cash flow or EBITDA, which is the principal metric that the business was valued on. And so that was the challenge. And that’s what we were very focused on doing in the early days. And again, this was in the very early days in terms of software and how the business was managed and then taking a step back for a second. Prior to my research company that I started after school, I had started a software company in school with my freshmen dorm mate, and we created software for traffic and billing and for music scheduling and callout music research. So my background, the first company I actually started was a company called OmniSoft, was a software company for radio stations. So with that background, I actually brought him in as CTO, and we worked to understanding that the software was sort of a cottage industry broadcast software. And none of it was really very good, and so we wanted to create a really an integrated technology platform, sort of ERP, that would help run the business and would do so and enable us to, as they say, systemize, the approach to running radio stations, particularly the back office and the SGNA function. And so that’s what we did. But again, same sort of thing. You meet with resistance because a program director who was used to their music scheduling system that they had used for a long time, just like viewer on word, perfect. And somebody said, you want to go to Microsoft Word, met with resistance there. And so these are the sort of the things that we had to navigate through. So there were a lot of challenges. The good news is the economy was chugging along and the broadcast business was doing very, very well. So that sort of brings us up to the spring of 2000 before the.com crash. And then that created a whole separate set of challenges that we had to navigate. I can take a pause there if you’d like to ask any other questions. James Di Virgilio: (09:25)So describe the beginning, the feeling, what some of the experiences might have been. And in fact, it might even be instructive to start with your time at Stanford, with a very first company you started. What stands out to you, putting yourself back in that mindset, starting a new venture, looking around and saying, here’s what we’re going to do. Here’s why we’re doing it. What is fresh in your mind about that sort of experience as a leader or a founder of a new venture? Lew Dickey: (09:52)Sanford was a pretty fertile ground for it and you’d see it all around you. So it was easy to get caught up in it. And I can remember being at the undergraduate library and when Apple brought in the early Macintoshes and there was a big table in Meyer library, and a number of us were there and we were asked to use this mouse. And you remember the original Macs and look at this. And Steve jobs was in there walking around, talking to all of us. “What do you think of this? How does this work?” And doing a little focus group with half a dozen of us sitting around a table doing this, and obviously he was already a very big deal and a celebrity in his own right. And enormously successful. And so those were sort of the formative years and you were around that. And so it was easy to embrace that and want to participate and want to do something like that. And I knew the broadcast business because of my father’s stations in Toledo, having grown up in them. I never actually worked there, but I certainly was around it and understood the business. And so they were doing everything manually from music scheduling and tracking and billing. And he was looking to automate that and had proposals. I was out schooling and he said, you’re out there. Tell me what you want, what I should look at, and that’s how it started. I took a look at all these brochures and grabbed my buddy Alford, who was a computer science wizard and said, what do you think of all this stuff? And cocky freshmen. He’s like, hell, I could write that much better. And so that’s when we looked at it and said, all right, well, this is a business. It’s a good industry. Let’s do it. And that’s how we started it. And that was it. You didn’t know what you didn’t know. And at that stage of life, there’s so much success coming out of the young, smart kids that are out there and all around the country now. It’s great because you don’t know what you don’t know. And sometimes you need that blissful ignorance and self-assuredness to just go forward and do it. And that’s what we had. And it didn’t work that well. James Di Virgilio: (11:30)And you mentioned sort of a blissful ignorance, perhaps hubris, right? There’s a lot of benefit to that when starting a new venture. Was there a time in any of your early years at these various ventures that you started, that you were perhaps afraid of failing, or you had a fear that this won’t work or what happens if this doesn’t work? Lew Dickey: (11:47)No, there really wasn’t, I’ve never been afraid of failing. And I’ve always sort of thought when I went into something that I was going to succeed, and I think that that never really entered my mind. I think, you know, later in life, when you have a lot of responsibility, it’s difficult to walk away from something. Then I think it’s just common sense. People are much more risk averse, and it’s very hard to do that. And you have to really think about failure and consequences. Particularly you have real responsibilities, which is why that’s the perfect time to do it when you don’t and you can sort of let it fly and throw caution to the wind and just go and you have a good idea, chase it. And I think it’s the greatest feeling in the world. And I would encourage anybody who’s in a position to do so to do it. And I think as we all go through life and you have more responsibilities as you get older, that’s why, if you think about it and you want to do it as a young person without all of the responsibilities that could potentially weigh you down, do it. But to answer your question, no, I never really thought about failure or what, I was just sure that it was going to work out and it just scoped full speed ahead. James Di Virgilio: (12:41)And looking back now, obviously here you are, right? Lots of experience, all the things you’ve done in your life. Looking back now to any one of those early stage moments, what is some wisdom you would have given to yourself? You’re in a time machine, you go back and you say, “Hey, young Lew, here’s some things at this stage that now I know that you should either not worry about or focus more on.” What are some of those things? Lew Dickey: (13:01)I always try to do this, but you never really do it in the moment – you think about it in retrospect. But I always told myself to pay attention to people that had gone before me and try to absorb as much knowledge as you can from people who have had that experience, lived through it, had the school of hard knocks, paid for it, and trying to benefit from their experience. And even though I told myself that, and I think to an extent I did, and I was very fortunate enough to have some key mentors in the industry who were very helpful to me, in addition to my father, who was my number one mentor and blessed with an enormous amount of common sense and was in his own right, very successful. I just think that I could have done more in that respect, but I think about mistakes that you make, maybe it’s inevitable, but I think if possible, really hone in on and go the extra mile in terms of trying to learn from people who have walked there before you, because it really can provide a shortcut. You don’t have to learn everything. You don’t hear yourself or relearn it. And if some people have trodden that ground before you don’t be a dummy and learn from them. So I think I probably could have done a better job there. James Di Virgilio: (14:01)Wise words there for sure. All right. Let’s take a look at the, we’ll call these the middle years, but really this is going to be anything in your mindset that sits out as middle to you. So you finished the startup years. You finished your early seed years. Now, you’re obviously a CEO you’re established to some degree. How did your normal day change compared to the early years? Lew Dickey: (14:22)It’s less frenetic. You’re more on top of it. You understand the game, if you will. That comes with experience and seasoning. And was, I said, you have two jobs, you have to run the stock and you have to run the company and you just get better at both. And we were very aggressive, you know, continued to push and continued to grow and innovate wherever we could, whether it be new structures, deal structures, or continued to work on the technology platform. So I would just say that you get more comfortable, you know your way around, you’re known to the other people in the industry and in the investment community and Wall Street. And so I just think that it’s pretty much common sense. I just think the longer you’ve been doing it, the better you get. You’re just more productive. You’re not putting out fires to that extent. And you’re building a good team and all that as a prerequisite to building a lasting enterprise. James Di Virgilio: (15:09)You’ve got a foundation set, and now you’re beginning the optimization period, and you mentioned the team. Did your original team change just a little bit or significantly from the early years to more of the middle years? Lew Dickey: (15:20)Yes it did, but that’s inevitable in business. So you think about the C-suite yes. We changed CFO, we changed some of the key operating people, and then obviously you’re constantly having change, which is just the nature of business within business units. And it’s a very distributed business, which is very different from a tech company or a large software company where everything tends to be in one area. Even though you’re doing business around the world. In the radio business, you don’t have a large corporate staff; at the Heights, we had 7,000 employees and we may have had 75 at corporate. And so you’re talking about 1-2% of your employees are at corporate and everybody else’s out in the field and you’ve got business units that run their own P and L’s and they report up. So that’s the way to think about it. James Di Virgilio: (16:01)So you have this obviously changing, as you’ve mentioned, responsibility landscape. Your roles become not more defined, but certainly you take the lessons that you’ve learned and you know some things you want to apply. What were some of the focus points that shifted from the early years to the middle years? What were some of the priorities that perhaps changed as the business grew and there were different challenges that needed to be addressed? Lew Dickey: (16:22)Well, all businesses go through challenges. I think we had early on the need to, I called it professionalize the business from a lot of the mom and pops that sort of ran it out of their checkbook and didn’t have what normal industry practices would be away from the broadcast industry. Something like CRM or an ERP system, the various checks and balances that you would need for timely reporting sales training. These are things that were really done ad hoc. Some of them didn’t do it at all. And so in essence, to professionalize and try to create standards and best practices and drive those through the organization. So you could effectively scale it and leverage your management structure and create something where you could have upward mobility within the company, which I thought was an extremely important part. And if you had a very small market, if you were in Macon, Georgia, or Albany, Georgia, and you wanted somebody to be in a position to be able to run Atlanta, the skillset required to do it is essentially the same. It’s the same business. It’s this question of, if you have the right standardization and processes that are consistent or homogenous throughout the organization, you can really create upward mobility. And there really wasn’t a lot of that, I think in the industry. The people who ascended to roles in markets were generally people who came up in those markets rather than people who came from a smaller market or a hub market and moved up. And so there wasn’t a lot of that in the industry. So I wanted to create something that would give people the opportunity to do that and move if they so desire, it wouldn’t just have to be running the market. Could be a sales manager, could be a key account manager, program, director, music, director, chief engineer, whatever role you would think of within a radio station, marketing promotions director. So those are the things that we wanted to create. Lew Dickey: (17:59)And as I mentioned, it caused an awful lot of consternation to get folks to buy into that. And just simply because people are very, very, very resistant to change. And so that was the bane of my existence in trying to do that. But over time, people self-selected. And we actually went outside the business because we were systematized to that extent, we were able to then hire outside of the business and bring some people in from other industries, from hospitality, from other business services industries, into the broadcast business, which also I think was helpful in growing the talent base. So I think that all of that was very necessary and it was just a lot of hard knocks and scars to get it there, but that started to change over time. And then a lot of industries, particularly as we see now, more prevalent than ever, particularly through the pandemic, the broadcasting business, as well as traditional media, beginning with the newspaper industry, started to experience serious disruption by digital technology. And it happened to them first and they obviously missed the boat by allowing their content to be shared for free. And so in doing so, they devalued their content and consumers really began to believe that information was free. And I talked about this in my book, only a couple of newspapers really, successfully, have survived this; the New York times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and others are working hard to do it. Most did not, and the reason is they let their information out for free, very early on and consumers came to expect it and didn’t value it. And then when they tried to erect a paywall consumers just moved on and there were plenty of others places they can find free information. Lew Dickey: (19:43)So in my judgment, had the newspaper industry adopted the paywall approach early on…they never handed out New York times or Atlanta Constitution Journals free on the street corner. You had to buy them. And now that the information was available digitally on your personal computer, (which was back in the day, now obviously everything’s mobile) they were able to access that for free. And so I think they should have been much more careful about that early on. And clearly I think the motion picture industry was, and to a great extent television and the sports leagues, they understood the value of their content. Newspaper people didn’t. So as a result, newsrooms have been gutted, they’re off 70% in terms of staffing and hundreds of papers have closed and stopped printing, and others will do the same going forward. So it’s a very challenged industry simply because they didn’t get on it early enough. And on the broadcast side, it was really the competition for digital advertising. It wasn’t so much which that they were getting our product for free because in broadcasting, you already got the product for free. Our model was obviously distribute free to consumers and the advertisers pay for it. And there really was no digital competition for local radio per se. You had music services, but you always had record players and cassette players and CDs in the cars. So your music collection already had a separate outlet anyway that competed with broadcast. The difference was it was local advertisers, and national, but local advertisers which always represented about 85% of the business weighted average. They now had another choice and that was search and obviously social, which is why those behemoths now between the two of them, Google and Facebook, now have multiples probably 10 times, if not more, it could be as much as 15 times, the entire size of the radio industry, just in those two companies. So that dollar started moving in that direction. And obviously in a fixed inventory business, I started putting real pressure on rates because these businesses were growing at 20, 30% a year. Lew Dickey: (21:23)And ad dollars tend to grow with nominal GDP, which we know is low single. And so as a result that you were seeing a real share shift away, and that’s why it crushed newspapers. It really began with Craigslist and the classifieds, which represented half of the newspapers’ profits and for a service, it was essentially free that started to decimate them. And then as people wouldn’t pay for their news, that sort of was the nail in the coffin then. And so you saw dollars go there, that business was gutted. And then it started to pick up steam, the shift in dollars away from local media into digital. And that’s what’s caused a great deal of problems today. So the radio industry was, I think at its height, 21-22 billion, and now it’s probably honing in on half that post pandemic. And we’ll see whether or not there is a rebound. I’m highly doubtful that there will be a significant rebound from here. X political, which was sort of supercharged in 2020, but I’m highly skeptical that in broadcast radio there’ll be a significant rebound and in television reruns, which they refer to as their subscription revenue, which obviously is coming from the MVPD now represents between that and political represents half the business. And obviously that never used to be the case. So they’re straight local ad dollars spot advertising is off dramatically as well. James Di Virgilio: (22:34)This is a nice segue from what you just talked about, but now looking as a mature CEO facing a lot of the challenges you just mentioned, you’re in this stage, you’re no longer a disruptive startup force. You’re obviously steering a much larger ship. It’s harder to be as nimble as the college kids who are taking one idea and trying to improve upon it. So how do you handle the pressure as a CEO with all of these different changes that occur in your industry? How do you handle the pressure of the media of public opinion, your own employees when making these decisions? Lew Dickey: (23:04)Well, it’s a good question and there’s no real single answer, I think, that can encapsulate that. You have to look at each of the constituents independently and you have a plan and then obviously you’re going to make mistakes and you’ve got to course correct, and you’ve got to do so as quickly as you possibly can. Some of these things, you have to take them as they come. The landscape is changing. You might be able to see a little bit around the corner, but nobody has perfect vision into the future. I certainly did not at the time predict the speed with which the shift would go to digital, the acceleration and the rate of it, that it would go. And I think that they would inform everybody in terms of balance sheet management, if anybody had that idea, you know, nobody’s downside cases had, I think, much of a shift or this rapid over shift taking place. And anybody who says they did would be fooling you because if that was the case, if anybody knew, then everybody would have put their companies up for sale five years earlier and been on top of it. So you don’t know at the time. And sometimes it’s hard when you’re in the forest to actually see the proverbial trees and understand that because you’re a cheerleader for your own book and what you’re doing, and sometimes it’s hard to have perfect objective information on this. And again, when there’s no precedent for it, it makes it even that much more difficult. So I think we worked very hard to innovate and saw some things coming to our credit. And we looked very hard at commerce and we had a commerce initiative, which was to in essence, look for a different revenue model from the reach. Radio always had great reach and still does have great reach. It’s just got a very challenged ad-based business model because it doesn’t have pricing power. And so you have to look for incremental ways to monetize an audience, which as I mentioned earlier, and as everybody knows, gets it for free. Lew Dickey: (24:42)And so you have to look for smart ways to monetize. And commerce is a very interesting way to do that. We sell our ad units to help other people make money with their businesses. And is there a way to participate in that and have a revenue stream other than just selling commercial announcements? And so we had a commerce initiative. I definitely saw the need for, or the shift with digital, and that everybody sort of gets into everybody’s business because it’s all bits. And so the need for more of a multi-platform brand or approach to entertainment and media. And so we were looking at that. We had a good presence in country, so we created our Nash brand to do just that. Obviously at radio, we had a record label that we put together with Scott Porshanna. We bought country weekly magazine and converted that to Nash magazine that we bought from American media. And we’re looking for a cable channel TV outlet, to create this virtuous circle of content distribution monetization under a brand that could in essence attract a large and loyal audience. And so we were doing that, had a streaming proposal that we were doing with Yannis Frieze, who started Skype and sold it. And so we had some interesting things that we were doing. This is back in 20 13, 14, 15, so long time ago, I think a tad ahead of our time, these things would all be necessary today to evolve immediate business, but broadcast radio company into a modern media business. James Di Virgilio: (26:03)Looking at the various stages that you were in: early, middle, mature, now. You always had to make decisions strategically with how you were going to run the business or compete. What informed those decisions, what was the playbook or the rubric, like how do you go about deciding how you’re going to compete or solve a problem, or basically move the industry forward? Lew Dickey: (26:26)You’ve always got the constraint of your balance sheet, your capital structure. And so you have to weigh everything. So it’s easier to see what needs to be done. At least I always felt this way. It’s easier to understand what needs to be done and where you need to go than it is to actually go and do it based on the constraints that you have with your existing capital structure. So I don’t know if that answers your question, but I think you constantly have to understand sort of leverage liquidity and risk in anything that you do. And I always try to size up problems through that prism. And then in terms of moving the industry, like that was the other part of your question, it’s very difficult to do that. And because you have a lot of headstrong people that run their own businesses and more power to them, and they’re going to run their business as they see fit. And ultimately you compete against them. And if you can show a better way, perhaps they move and adopt your vision, or just try to copy you or emulate you. And so it’s very difficult to try to lead an industry. And I think that a lot of my colleagues, if they were trying to create a consortium to do something, and even if it was an incredibly noble effort and well thought out, my experience was that it was always really difficult to succeed there. And so sort of observing that, I always thought that there’s a better use of time than trying to get a bunch of people who have their own balance sheets and worries and concerns to try to do what you want them to do. And sometimes reflexively people are stubborn just because it’s coming from a competitor. And so those are the kinds of things that industry leadership in that respect, I always looked at as the best way to do that is to just chart your own course and lead by example. And if you’re successful, what you’re doing makes sense from an industrial logic perspective and the results are there, then people will follow. That’s sort of the best way to do it is you just have to lead by example, if you’re really trying to move an industry, there isn’t time for the brain damage that it takes to try and herd cats and get a bunch of disparate folks with disparate agendas to try to coalesce. Very, very, very difficult to do and in my judgment, not necessarily the best use of time. James Di Virgilio: (28:29)Lew, wonderful stuff. Thank you for being with us here on the Radio Cade podcast, for spending a considerable amount of time with us today. And for Radio Cade, I’m James di Virgilio. Outro: (28:36)Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episode’s host was James di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Medicine that talks to you. Eric Buffkin of eTectRx developed an “edible radio” powered by the chemicals in your stomach that tracks when you take every dose of your medication. Eric’s colleague, pharmacist Susan Baumgartner, says about 50% of people that are prescribed medication do not take it when they are supposed to. Over the last decade, the company has extensively tested the ID-Cap System and In December 2019 received FDA approval. The company has had several “near-death” experiences, but Buffkin said the real problem of tracking medication usage wasn’t going away, and therefore the opportunity for the company wouldn’t go away either. Susan said at each pivot point or setback the team and investors said: “let’s go forward.” *This episode is a re-release.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions Radio Cade, and podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio (00:40): Medicine that talks to you, or at least talks to your smartphone. That’s no longer the stuff of science fiction. It will soon be available for patients everywhere. Welcome to another episode of Radio Cade, I’m your host, James Di Virgilio. And today my guests are Eric Buffkin and Susan Baumgartner the developers of a system called ID Cap and the co-founder of a company called eTectRx. Welcome to the show, Eric and Susan. Eric Buffkin (01:03): Thanks very much. James Di Virgilio (01:04): So let’s dive right into your story. I spent a lot of time pre-show talking with you, Eric, about what you developed. It’s very fascinating. I’m sitting here looking at it right now, in its simplest form you developed a medical breakthrough, this something that doesn’t exist in its form. Tell us about what you’ve done, what you’ve created. Eric Buffkin (01:19): Probably the most important thing we invented James, is a way to communicate in an edible radio. And when you get right down to it, it’s a tiny little radio that’s small enough that you can swallow it and it can take power off of the chemicals in your stomach. And so you don’t need a battery. You don’t need much of anything. You can see it there it’s really tiny. And once you swallow it, it essentially starts transmitting. There are a lot of folks that have tried to do different things like this. You can get ingestible cameras for doing endoscopy’s and different things, but they’re typically fairly large, fairly expensive and not something you want to use to track when somebody takes every dose of their medication, which is what we’re trying to do. James Di Virgilio (01:56): Now, Susan, as a pharmacist, I have friends who are pharmacists, I know that one of the most important things is for patients to actually take their drugs. How often is it that patients are not taking their drugs on time or even taking them at all during a course of drug therapy? Susan Baumgartner (02:11): In terms of long term therapy, the numbers about 50%. So 50% of medicine is not taken as it’s prescribed or as it’s needed in patients. So that’s pretty big number and that’s the one that we’re trying to help solve for. James Di Virgilio (02:24): And that’s what creates a significant need, is if I’m the physician and I prescribe the medication, it’s not taken, my patient may not get better. And I can’t for sure say why I might prescribe another medication, which may be the wrong course of therapy. So in comes this solution, we understood and learned, you know, really recently that you’ve gotten FDA approval. Tell us about the process of getting FDA approval, because it’s not simple and for what you’re doing, it was essential. Eric Buffkin (02:47): So that would be Susan’s core area of expertise. She is the one responsible for wrestling the FDA to the ground and making them cry uncle. And in that regard. Susan Baumgartner (02:56): So we have extensively tested the product. So after Eric and his team developed an incredible product with amazing technology, we had to put it into a usable form so that patients could use it on a day to day basis. And physicians could take that and other healthcare professionals could take that information and really use that to improve health outcomes. And so the process for getting clearance takes several years. It actually was a period of about four to five years that we did the required testing for the product and that included putting it into humans and seeing how long it took for the battery to send a signal and how long it took for the reader that’s worn to detect that signal. And also how the communication flowed from the body to the patient, to the healthcare provider who might be using that information. So we did clinical testing. We did a series of making sure that what was swallowed was actually very safe and it moved through the system the way it was supposed to move through and did a number of bench tests that also made sure that it worked the way it needed to, and it produced the results that it needed to. James Di Virgilio (04:04): So I’m looking at the pill here in front of me, it’s a normal capsule size. The drug manufacturer would be able to put their drug into this, along with the ID cap. Right? I take that. And then within 30 minutes, a signal is sent to a reader which is going to collect the data of the medication that I’ve taken. So therefore the physician, myself, maybe even the drug company, potentially I can know that I’ve taken this drug. Now that’s the base level thought of what’s going on. Right? Eric Buffkin (04:29): Right. Exactly. It’s really a measuring stick so that you can measure how often and how frequently and how regularly somebody takes their medicine. And the big difference between this approach. You didn’t notice a confirmed ingestion. There are hundreds of other products out on the market. You can go on to the app store for iOS and probably find 20 different medication reminder apps. All of those will allow you to separate minders to remind you to take your medicine, but not one of those or confirm anything, same thing with little pill bottles or other organizers, you can get reminded, but there’s no way for the physician to know other than the report by the patient saying, doc, I took my medicine and there’s many cases where that’s simply not sufficient for the care or for the patient’s wellbeing. James Di Virgilio (05:11): Now, as you mentioned, Eric, this problem has been around for a long time. We’ve talked about this, right? 50% of patients are not taking their drugs or taking them correctly. This idea that you had was not a brand new one, it’s been attempted to have been solved before we understood. There’s a competitor that exists, that does something similar and you yourself and this company has been around for more than 10 years. It’s obviously been a journey. Oh yes. And with any entrepreneurial story, there’s some conflict points where we would call it. Maybe some drama points in a movie. Tell us about a few of those experiences that got you to where you were today, but were maybe unknown as you walk through them. Eric Buffkin (05:44): Oh jeepers, how long we have? James Di Virgilio (05:46): Hours. Eric Buffkin (05:47): Okay. We’ll try and narrow it down. So first of all, I was one of the co-founders of the company. I had Dr. Neil Yoliana a local PhD, brilliant man who was actually the aha guy, the guy who originally thought of the, hey why don’t we put a radio on a pill and be able to detect when somebody takes their medicine. And he and I met several years ago, I had some chip and radio background and he has a lot of biomedical engineering background. And so we started exploring this. He had actually had some funding from the NSF to work with some UF professors to do some early development. And so we took that development, started the company we’re moving down the path a couple of years into it. We were getting interesting experimental results thing. Wasn’t quite behave in the way we wanted it to behave. And we ended up hiring a new engineer out of St. Pete named Judd Sheets. Brilliant guy. Also, one of the things I have discovered is make sure all the guys you hire are a lot smarter than you are. That’s certainly the case in our company. And one of the first days Judd came in and he started looking at this system and say, wow, this is really cool stuff, but you know, it’ll never work the way you’ve got it designed. And that was kind of one of those aha moments of are you serious? And to his credit, he was absolutely right. And to his further credit, he allowed us to fix it, which is a big part of it. So that was a big drama point, especially for being about three years into the company. At that time, James, enough of your background in the investment community, you’ve dealt with a lot of folks that are entrepreneurs and startups. They say, you can tell you’re a pioneer by the arrows in your back. We had a few of those three or four years ago. We actually had to shut the company down for a period of time. The short story is we weren’t able to raise the investment we needed. We had to shut it down, tell everybody go home. And we were fortunate in that. We around it up a new set of investors who basically said, okay, everybody come back and recapitalize and we got restarted and we’ve been better capitalized and resourced since that time. And that’s, what’s really allowed us to get over the hump of this FDA clearance. So that near death experience will give you a few gray hairs. James Di Virgilio (07:38): You’ve mentioned so much in your story that resonates with so many other success stories, which wouldn’t feel like a success. If you stop that a lot of points along the way, what kept you believing in your vision of this idea, becoming a reality, despite financial issues, a decade of time going through having to deal with FDA approval, you had a lot of hurdles. What kept you going? Why didn’t you just pull the plug and say, you know what? This isn’t worth it. Eric Buffkin (08:02): And we still thought it was the right thing to do. I want to play off one thing Susan said, and also want Susan to share one of the other interesting conflict points, but drama points, maybe. The problem’s not going away. 50% of people are still not taking the medicine for all you hear and in the press about how high drug prices are pharmaceuticals are still one of the least expensive ways to treat somebody, compare it, to go into emergency room or go into the hospital. Still much less expensive. And 50% of people that don’t take their medicine results in hundreds of billions of dollars of completely avoidable costs to the healthcare system here in the U.S. that’s money that our taxes have to pay and that we have to pay and drives our insurance premiums and drives a lot of stuff. So the problem was still there. The need was still there. We felt like the opportunity was still there. So we kept kicking the can down the road, kept trying to move ahead. James Di Virgilio (08:47): Now, Susan, tell us about this drama points that Eric’s mentioning. Susan Baumgartner (08:50): I was just in a play off one thing that you said in terms of the adherence side of things, the current way that adherence is measured is through a self report by the patient. The patient tells their provider how they’ve been taking the medicine, and that’s not as objective as it needs to be when you’re looking at high cost therapy or you’re looking at the outcomes that you’re really trying to drive in a patient and in a care situation. And so our device ends up giving real time, look at medication use that has not been seen before. It gives the time that they’ve taken the medication. It gives medication patterns, really essential information when someone’s being discharged from a hospital or when they’re starting on a new therapy or they have a complex regimen or a very expensive regimen that is designed to produce a certain outcome in that patient. And so it helps to inform that and provide evidence to be able to make the best decisions for that patient and their care. James Di Virgilio (09:46): Yeah, you’re hitting the nail on the head. I follow nutrition very closely, and it’s almost impossible to do a really good academic study in nutrition because it’s all self-reported and you get all sorts of weird results because people say why this many calories this week, or this much protein, and certainly in medicine, it’s the same thing. Only. It’s a lot more serious when it comes to drug therapy. And so when you were telling your story about it, because it’s important because it needed to be done. I think that’s the neatest thing. I think in our modern times, there’s oftentimes a misconception about why entrepreneurs start businesses, why creativity maybe even occurs in almost every time it’s to solve a real problem that exists. And that’s what I’m hearing in your stories. There’s a real problem that patients are not taking their drugs correctly, which is leading to a lower result for their own health. And this is an elegant solution that can hopefully improve the outcomes for patients. Susan Baumgartner (10:34): Yes. You asked about the persistence of this idea and the company over time. And as Eric said, we were fortunate to have an infusion of funding and people who trusted that this was the right solution. And there was a large market opportunity. And fortunately at each of those critical pivot points where we could have said, it’s not going to work, or it’s going to be too long of a road, or the regulatory hurdles are just too much for a small company like ours, the team that developed it, the group that was working on implementing it, and the investors all stood behind and said, we’ve got to bring this to the market to improve care and to improve adherence monitoring. And that’s one of the points that I think Eric was bringing up was when we stood at the end of a very long, very expensive clinical trial and had results that didn’t look quite what we expected them to be. And it took a large and laborious investigation from all of our technical folks and the entire team to dissect that and try to figure out why is it that we know this product can deliver at this high level? And why did we not achieve that in this study? And fortunately through the hard work of the engineers and the development team, we were able to pinpoint exactly what it was correct it very quickly and move forward with additional clinical studies, to be able to demonstrate that we were performing at that high level. Just one of many examples of the incredible persistence of a team and the investment group to make things happen. James Di Virgilio (12:01): And today we’re sitting here and there’s a bottle of champagne on the table in front of the three of us. And Eric You were the first to do the living adventure series at the Cade Museum, and you are now the first recipient of the Cade’s gift to you and to your company for receiving FDA approval. So we go through these dramatic points in your story, you survive some tumultuous points. Now you have FDA approval. What’s next. Eric Buffkin (12:23): Boy, that’s a good question. Sell like crazy. The FDA clearance is essentially the permission by the regulatory authority to go take money for this thing. We’ve been developing for a long time and it is now of something we are going to do with great enthusiasm. We’re working on building collaborations with a lot of people in the ecosystem around how pharmaceuticals are delivered to patients. There’s a lot of important partnerships delivery for development, data flow reimbursement. So one thing that was another kind of, one of these ahas, I come out of the chip business, primary building microchips for consumer electronics and, and that business, once you get at work, you go sell it. And the person who buys it is the person who uses it. The healthcare market’s not quite so simple because the person who uses it, it’s not the person who’s paying for it. And the person who’s prescribing it. It’s a lot of intertwined things that have to be sorted out. And the whole machine has to be running before the business starts to ramp up. So, um, we’re hopefully going to be taking advantage of this clearance to help get that ramp going. James Di Virgilio (13:22): And so taking what you said into consideration, how long do you think it will be before I could take a capsule like this one and have data transmitted to it? Are we months away, years away, maybe? Hard to say? Eric Buffkin (13:33): I’m going to give you two answers. The first one I’m gonna give you the second one. I’m give Susan to answer. If you’re willing to sign up for one of the clinical studies, we have run in with multiple people around the country, you can do it tomorrow. It’s a matter of fact, I may have some informed consent forms in that truck, James, so we can walk you out there and sign you up. But on the commercial side, do you want to talk about the commercial a little bit better as to what the companies have to go through to actually introduce a commercial product? Susan Baumgartner (13:54): Yes, the product will actually be available by prescription only. So as Eric said, there are clinical studies right now in place where the product is being used and you could get access to it. If you are eligible for those studies in terms of bringing a product to market within our capsule and with the ingestible sensor in it, there is a pathway that is allowed for that through the FDA. And so we can provide a combination drug device product very soon, but more than likely in partnership with other companies and other payers and pharmaceutical companies will be able to take approved products, combine them with that sensor that’s available and have those available for clinical applications and clinical use very soon. Eric Buffkin (14:36): One thing probably should clarify, James is that eTectRx does not handle drugs. We don’t make drugs. We don’t distribute drugs. We’re not a pharmacy. We created this device to help feed into that chain of pharmaceutical manufacturers, our pharmacies, to do exactly what described there. So we’re providing an enabling component to make that happen. James Di Virgilio (14:55): Well, Eric and Susan, this has been wonderful. We definitely need to bring you back for a second session so we can dive further into there’s so much more we can talk about including your own backgrounds, which I know oftentimes play into our stories as entrepreneurs. I know Eric, you like the beach. I know there’s other things you’d like to fishing, boating, right? I see that you have, in fact, a fishing shirt, I feel like it’s Friday. Maybe you’re going to head out and hit the open water this weekend, but regardless, there’s so much to cover. This is so exciting. I think it’s really neat whenever you get to look at a solution that doesn’t exist, there’s nothing right now that exists like what you have. And it’s been great to talk about it. We should dive further into it. And for James Di Virgilio and Radio Cade, thanks for joining us. Eric Buffkin (15:33): Thanks very much for having us James. Outro (15:35): Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

Diabetes sometimes leads to loss of vision. What if there were a simple screening device to find out who is at risk? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand, a Canadian ophthalmologist and founder of two start-up companies, invented a hand-held device that in minutes measures the eye’s electrical waves to detect patients who may be suffering from diabetic retinopathy. Hildebrand talks about the challenges in moving from academia to the start-up world. “It was hard to get somebody that understood what we were doing to fund the company and run it,” Hildebrand said, “so I drew the short straw.” *This episode is a re-release.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles (00:40): An EKG for the eye is helping people with diabetes to keep their eyesight. Welcome to radio Cade, I’m your host, Richard Miles. And today I’m talking to Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand and ophthalmologist and founder of two startup companies. Welcome to Radio Cade, Lloyd. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (00:53): Thank you very much. It’s good to be here. Richard Miles (00:55): So Lloyd, I got to say you’re the second Canadian I’ve interviewed in the last three days. And our listeners may begin to think I’ve fled to Manitoba, Saskatchewan or somewhere, but I promise from the beginning, no hockey jokes, no references to Molson or any of that nonsense. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (01:08): Okay. At least it’s not February and 40 below zero. Richard Miles (01:12): Exactly. But I did want to comment on that. Actually, you were born in Canada and you grew up in Brazil. You came back to Canada for medical school, you practice in Iowa for a few years as a physician, then some training in Oklahoma, you worked in Portland, Oregon for a while. And now you’re either in New York or Las Vegas. I can’t remember where you are at the moment. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (01:30): I’m in Las Vegas now. Richard Miles (01:31): So the obvious question is, are you on the run from the law or sort of what explains your trajectory, give us a snapshot of Lloyd Hildebrand and why it is you in so many different places? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (01:39): Sure. I was born in Canada and at age four, my family moved to Brazil, Southern Brazil. All my parents were missionaries there. And I lived there till I was age 16. I came back to Canada and finished high school and went to do my undergraduate work in my medical school in Winnipeg at the University of Manitoba. I then went into primary care and was a primary care physician for almost a decade one year in Canada, and then move to council Bluffs, Iowa, where I joined two of the Canadian physicians there in a primary care setting, doing family medicine there, obstetrics. I then went back to training in ophthalmology at the University of Oklahoma in Oklahoma city at the Dean McGee eye Institute, which is a large regional well known academic center and did a fellowship at a family plastic and reconstructive surgery in Portland, Oregon. That was a one year program. And I was recruited back to the University of Oklahoma at that time. And I spent 22 years there on faculty and went through the full academic career there. I retired in 2016 to go to New York and work on an artificial intelligence project. I worked a couple of companies that were working with IBM Watson at the time. And after that project is completed, now I’ve decided to come to Las Vegas, Nevada and I start work on Monday, two days from now. Richard Miles (02:55): You’re quite the traveler. I did note that you’ve actually hit both coasts and the dead center of the United States, Canada and Brazil. So you’ve got the hemisphere pretty well covered. Lloyd, let’s talk about your core idea that you’ve been working on for a while, but I think is fascinating. I think that what we’d like to spend most of our time today talking about, and then later the company or the companies that you have founded to spread those ideas. So let’s start talking about diabetes, which isn’t obviously connected to eyesight for a lot of people, but tell us what is the connection to vision? And then what is the problem that you are trying to solve? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (03:29): Sure, well, diabetes is the largest growing problem and growing very rapidly at epidemic proportions, diabetes really does a lot of its damage in terms of damaging the end organs, The eye being one of them, the kidney, the heart, and the brain are also organs that can be damaged. It’s usually damaged to the small blood vessel of the eye and that’s called diabetic retinopathy and diabetic retinopathy is actually the leading cause of preventable blindness in working aged Americans. So it’s a major cause of vision loss. The real challenge in diabetic retinopathy is that it’s easily treated. They’re very effective treatments and there’s very, very good research, probably one of the best research diseases in our scientific literature. And yet at the same time, it’s best treated when patients are asymptomatic. So therefore patients with diabetes, there’s a guideline recommendations for them to have an annual examination or evaluation of their retina to see if they have treatable disease. And if you treat the disease, you can prevent the blindness. If they start having symptoms, you can prevent the progression, but it’s very difficult to reverse the vision that they’ve already lost. So therefore the real challenge becomes how do you treat people in a timely way? And the way to do that is to evaluate them regularly and have a reliable test for doing that. The result of the healthcare system though is that only about 40 to 50% of people have that test done on a regular basis. And as a result, a lot of disease go detected until it becomes symptomatic. And they’re behind the eight ball in terms of treatment at that point in time. Richard Miles (05:05): Can you give us a sense of the magnitude of the problem and do you know, what is the percentage say of people who are going to develop diabetic retinopathy? If they’re not checked? I mean, reminds me a little bit of skin cancer or certain forms of skin cancer, right? Where if you detected easy to treat, if you don’t detect it, it’s highly lethal. What are we talking about in terms of those folks who don’t get checked? Are they in big, big trouble? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (05:27): 80% of people will develop diabetic retinopathy at some point in their lifetime of the disease. And there are certain risk factors that are associated with it. How long you’ve had diabetes, how poorly controlled it is. So the hemoglobin a one C level or the level of blood sugar that you have also it’s associated with a higher risk of patients with high blood pressure and high cholesterol and triglyceride levels. So high lipid levels. So all three of those states combined to increase the risk of the patient in doing this. So the relative risk of people developing vision from this, there were about 40,000 people a year that go blind from diabetic retinopathy. So it’s significant and there’s a much larger group of people that then have what we call moderate vision loss and moderate vision loss. Wouldn’t be so moderate to you and I. It’s the loss of the ability to read newsprint and loss of the ability to drive. So they’re very, very significant impacts in terms of people’s lifestyle and activities of daily living. Richard Miles (06:24): It sounds like if you have diabetes or if one has diabetes, you should at least be aware of the problem. But if I understand it correctly, from what I’ve read, the key is you may get this recommendation from your primary care physician and then you get a referral to a specialist and it’s in that scene, right? That a lot of people just don’t get around to doing it, or they don’t want to do it or whatnot. And so a lot of people who are actually told are aware that this may be a problem, don’t do the critical follow-up and there for, they go largely undiagnosed. Do I have that right? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (06:53): That’s correct. So the big challenge in the healthcare system is what I call people falling off the wagon. And you fall off the wagon from the primary care setting to the eye care environment where the eye exam needs to be done. Part of that is because it’s asymptomatic people, don’t perceive the importance of it. Part of it is it takes time. It costs money to do that. Part of it is that there’s some resistance on the eyecare environment in terms of getting appointments in a timely way. So there’s some inconvenience factor in that as well. And some of it is just that people aren’t even referred for it because again, it’s the asymptomatic disease. Richard Miles (07:27): So tell me then about the technology that you’ve developed to make this more efficient. I assume a primary care physician can do this in his or her office or pretty rapidly, so you no longer have to refer them to a specialist. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (07:40): Yes. So again, drawing back from my experience as a primary care physician, diabetes has exploded since I last practiced as a primary care physician, but nonetheless, it was an important part of our treatment as well. And so one of the things that primary care physicians do very well is tests people find out when they hit a threshold of disease that needs a specialist and then send them onto a specialist. So our idea is if we could provide a test for a primary care physician to do that was reliable and accurate and convenient for them to do. And generally you have to consider also the economic aspects of it so that they can actually make some revenue from doing this. But that would be something that could help us address this issue because it would avoid patients having to move from the primary care setting to the eye care setting until they had what we call threshold disease or disease severe enough to need treatment. So the initial application that we did is we use the photographic technique to do this. There was a photographic technique developed by the national institutes of health that was used for all clinical trials that were done for the FDA, for the new treatments, for new therapies and for epidemiologic studies. And that technique was developed on film, very similar to the view master film reels of cartoons that we used to watch as kids, little view masters. And it used that ability to create stereo by creating these two different views, our initial solution for doing that in the first company, I started took photographs and converted that process from a film based process to a digital process, created a reading center. So the photographs could be done in the primary care setting sent to the reading center and a report sent back to the primary care physician with a red and green label on it, a lot more detail if they wanted to, but they knew that if it was ramped, they needed to send the patient onto the ophthalmologist for treatments. So what we’re using now instead of imaging technology is we’re using a different form of imaging electrophysiologic imaging, where we actually measure the electrical activity of the eye to determine whether or not there is disease present there. And so that’s where the EKG of the eye analogy comes from. So it’s simpler to do doesn’t require the challenges of imaging, particularly in patients with cataract, because it doesn’t require us to image through the eye to get the data and it can be done much quicker and the reimbursement model is better. So there are several different advantages to the techniques of doing that currently. So part of that then was developing the service in such a way so that it could be delivered in the primary care setting. The workflow would not interfere with how the primary care physician does his or her work, and then setting up a reading center to be able to interpret the data and then report it back and doing this all through a cloud based architecture for doing it, and then important to the primary care physicians that we be able to integrate this into their existing healthcare infrastructure, their EMR systems, and that isn’t such a trivial thing to do either. So once we got all of that established, we were actually rolling out our pilot site and then our pilot site was very successful. And once we were successful with that, we were really working on commercial deployment and that’s when COVID hit. So we have to shut down for awhile. And now we’re reopening at this point and time. Richard Miles (10:42): So that makes it sound like this idea should spread like wildfire, right? Because it sounds like a quite superior way of handling it. And probably it’s going to save if not lives, at least people’s vision. Let’s talk now about the companies that you founded, not just the origin story, sort of like the day, but also a little bit about the experience of doing so, because you’re not the first one that we’ve had on the show. They come from primarily an academic background. They hit upon a great idea through their research, or they are collaborators on somebody else’s original insight. And most of them find it a very challenging transition to go from the academic world in which you do research and you publish and you then move on to the next research and you don’t have to worry about who’s paying for the little lights over your head or air conditioning or any of that. When they go into this world, in which your idea doesn’t sell itself, it has to be developed it has to be tested. It has to be marketed, it has to be distributed. How did you get, first of all, the idea that you wanted to do this to be involved yourself, right? Cause there’s another path and simply you could license the technology. And a lot of people do that and you move on to whatever else you want to do in life, but you decided to take the hard road and actually get involved in not one but two companies. So tell us what was the impetus for doing that? And describe for us maybe your first, I dunno, six months, what was it like and what did you learn in those early days? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (12:01): A little bit of this is the story of necessity is the mother of invention. So a lot of this was stimulated by a need. I had to do something to do that, to keep the idea alive. We developed the technology in our labs and we had actually continued to grow and develop the idea. We’re validating the idea through research grants and doing it through the traditional academic settings. We had a very large national trial that was going to be done, which is going to be the largest clinical trial ever done through the VA system. It was funded. We got the highest scores ever granted the program. And then for some unknown reason, it was rescinded. Again, I’m still not clear on why that happened. It was an almost $10 million grant, which at the time was the largest grant ever granted the University of Oklahoma health sciences center. So when that happened, the university said, look, either you have to abandon the idea or what you need to do is commercialize this idea and license it out. So we said, fine, we’ll do that. And we had obtained a patent for it at the time. So we thought we had some very tangible intellectual property license it out, but again, those things are a little bit challenging to do. And it was hard to get somebody that understood what we were doing to fund the company and then to run the company as well. There were two other co-inventors with me and they asked one of us to step out. And so I actually took the short straw and stepped out of the academic environment on a leave of absence from the university, just as I was about to hit tenure, my tenure promotion. It was a bit of a challenge and it was something that I hadn’t done before. And I remember the driving force behind my initial business plan was the Ernst & Young book, How to Write a Business Plan. And I literally followed that line by line chapter by chapter and develop a business plan for doing that. And I started marketing the business plan locally in Oklahoma, at the time it was hard to do that because a lot of people didn’t really understand what we were doing and the.com was booming at the time. So I packed everything up and I went to California and I started cold calling people on Sandhill Road. Richard Miles (13:59): Did you have any mentors at all that you turned to, or that offered you advice or was it just the Ernst & Young book and trial and error? You know, their whole bunch of small steps when you start a company that you don’t even think about filing for registration and finding an office and getting office furniture, all those sort of things that in other circumstances just appear out of nowhere as you do your work, did you have a roadmap or did you just day by day figure out, well, I guess I’ve got to do this and I guess I got to do that. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (14:25): So it’s not that there weren’t mentors, but at that point in time, especially in our academic environment, we were fairly immature at this concept of commercializing technology. So I was a little bit of a pioneer in all of that. And I think I suffered a lot of the arrows that pioneers have in their backs as a result of that as well, but still I did have good mentorship from some business people in the community, some people inside the university and then some of foundations that supported research at the university and these people were early investors in the idea, if nothing else, they provided me with encouragement. But much of what I had to do is really learn on the job OJT for sure, on the job training for the largest part of it. And the most frustrating part about it was that we really had an investor community in the Southwest in Oklahoma and in the region that really didn’t understand the digital world and the digital technology. And that changed dramatically when I went to California, didn’t move there. But when I went there to visit with investors there. Richard Miles (15:23): Primary care physicians are your principle market. I take it right. I mean, they’re the ones who you really expect this, or at least their hospitals will buy it for them. Once you had the product up and going or something to offer, was it a struggle at all? Or was it difficult to sell them on this idea? I mean, having been one yourself, you knew the language, at least that wasn’t a hurdle, but were there cost considerations or ease of use consideration? Did they said like, yeah. Okay. It looks great, but you know, we’re just going to stick with what we do and that’s fine with us. What did you encounter that at all? Or was it an easy sell? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (15:52): It was not an easy sell, as you can imagine. Medical systems are very resistant to change. First of all. So innovation is difficult to get implemented in medical systems. And there’s plenty of doors in terms of how long that takes somewhere between 7 to 14 years to really get that kind of adopted change. That was one of the points of resistance. So one of the main concerns that they had is the reimbursement issues and the reimbursement issues were complex because of the regulatory events around reimbursement. So Medicare and CMS had certain regulations that we had to follow. There were anti kickback rules that had to be followed as well because of self referral issues. And there were some telemedicine laws that were also pretty antiquated at that point of time, particularly anything that was done out of state. And when that happened, then we also have to follow other new rules in terms of licensure to be able to do this in other States. So there were significant complications to doing that. And then there was the natural resistance of the medical system to changing anything that they’re doing. There was some resistance from organized ophthalmology as well, which seemed to think that this was a threat because the ophthalmologist perspective of the problem is I see every diabetic that comes in and I examine them. What they don’t realize is that 60% of them aren’t making it in. Right? And so that was also one of the burdens that we had to overcome in order to do this. Richard Miles (17:13): I think you pointed out an under-appreciated problem or problems in the medical device or healthcare industry, and that this is classic third payer problem, right? Where even if the physicians themselves love the product or love the technology very often, they’re not the ones paying for it, nor do they have to deal with the regulatory hurdles necessarily in getting to use it. So did you find yourself having to spend a lot of time at Medicare offices in Washington or with regulators and insurance companies convincing them, this was a good thing for the field? Or how did you negotiate those hurdles? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (17:48): So we actually had to develop a strategy who we call coverage and reimbursement. So first of all, we had to change the policies and make this acceptable in order to do that, we went to the accreditation body. First of all, MCQA that this would meet the quality regulations that were part of the heat it’s report card, which is the report card, measuring the quality of a health plan performance on all of this. So that’s the first thing we had to do. Then we had to go to individual payers in each marketplace in order to get them to provide coverage and the reimbursement for this. So part of that is that we did a technical assessment. There are these organizations that the Hayes group does technical assessments of new technologies that come out, get that done. They review the literature and then provide a judgment on whether or not this is a qualified test to be done. We then went into individual marketplaces and we, first of all, tried to get Medicare coverage for that region. And we did that by visiting with people at CMS central office in Baltimore first, and then with the local carriers and the local carriers each made their own decisions. There’s an interesting story about our initial visit to CMS. It was actually on 9/11 and it was at nine o’clock on 9/11. So you can imagine what that was like. As I was walking into the building, the building was streaming out and we were meeting with the director of CMS at the time Dr. Sean Tunis. And he asked us and said, do you want to stay for the meeting or not? And we said, well, if you’re willing to meet, we’ll still meet, but we understand if you don’t want to do that. And we met and then lights were all grounded by them. And so we rented the last car at the airport and drove 24 hours, back to Oklahoma city. So it’s a very memorable day when we got that, but it was also a very good meeting with Dr. Tunis. Richard Miles (19:29): Wow. You probably carried out one of the only previously scheduled meetings and actually finished it on 9/11. I was in Washington at the state department and it was quite chaotic and, um, yeah. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (19:38): It was very, very tense and we had just driven from DC to Baltimore. So during that time, it was a very interesting time and very chaotic time. Richard Miles (19:47): Let’s go back a bit now about the company. So you have two companies, right? The current one is Trinoveon did I pronounce that correctly or how you did, but then the first one was called Inoveon, right? Correct. Okay. What’s the meaning behind those words? And what’s the difference between the two companies? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (20:02): Well, Inoveon was the initial company that we did and really the name was an aggregation of the word innovation and eon, the age of innovation. And so that was really the concept behind it. And our mission really was the prevention of diabetic blindness, because that was our whole mission in doing that. And so we set that up and we developed the technology. We developed all of the protocols with the protocols, the workflow, the business model, the regulatory model, and then the competency reimbursement and coverage decisions with all the health plans. We went through some ups and downs. We had several investors cycles and all of that. And ultimately, we sold that company to a German company that was a health IT company based in Germany, focused in, on the ophthalmology space and the largest provider of EMR systems for ophthalmology in the world. That company was then acquired in the sharks and minnows game by Topcon, which is a large Japanese ophthalmic company. And they were very interested because they were developing the devices that we were using to do the imaging. And so this was a natural fit for what they wanted to do. However, they also had an internal team that was working on their own solution for this. And so when they acquired the company, they basically mothballed the company. But the residual of all of that was that we had one of the largest datasets for annotated data that had very high quality data and evaluations in it that were commensurate with the research quality data that the NIH trials had done. So we had about 3 million images in that dataset. So as a result that became valuable to some of the artificial intelligence groups that were out there, the Googles of the world, and some of the large pharmaceutical companies that were developing and some of them are device companies. And so that data set has become the core of some of the big data analytics that has gone into some of the automated image reading systems that are out there. The challenge with imaging system and reading is that there are some significant operational challenges doing that. Diabetics have a large incidence of cataract. So when you have a cataract, it’s difficult to get a good image. And when you don’t get a good image, you can’t get a good test result. There are other workflow issues and the cost of the equipment and the operation of the equipment is also complex. So we thought that might be a better way to do this. So after that company was sold and spun out and was doing all of those things, we continued to work on other new innovative technologies to solve the same problem. And that’s the origin of trying to Trinoveon. Richard Miles (22:26): So the difference in, let me see if I have this straight part of what the challenge was. You’ve got all this data, but the ability to interpret the data and is that where the AI comes in, it just makes it more efficient and more accurate. Is that correct? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (22:37): That’s part of it. We still haven’t validated that it’s more accurate. We had human readers doing it. We had a very, very high quality system doing it. In fact, in daily routine operations, we actually matched or out performed research, trial quality data in our reading centers. So that was still difficult to do. The second part of it is that what’s happened in the retinal imaging. It’s become more of a screening technology rather than a diagnostic technology. And so what they’ve done is dummy down some of the questions that they have, and trying to just basically find people that have some disease and just get those people over. And so they can eliminate about 50% of the population that way. Richard Miles (23:15): I see. I hadn’t thought about that key difference between screening and diagnostic. One is just kind of bare minimum to do with a triage sort. Right. And then the other one is to really try to understand the disease Lloyd, tell me, how do you spend your days now in terms of the life cycle of the company? Are you still primarily on the research and development end or strategic management or.. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (23:36): So the answer is yes, to all of those as you do at small companies, there is a difference with Trinoveon, so first of all, the technology is different instead of technology we’re using electrophysiologic imaging. Richard Miles (23:49): So it’s the electrical activity, not actual photos that makes this so much simpler or relatively less complicated than the systems that are in place now. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (23:58): Yeah. So the technology of the device is actually quite complex, but what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to simplify all of the workflow for the primary care physician. So it can be done simply by a medical technician and can be done in less than five minutes. That was really the goal of what we were trying to do. So we’ve systematically operationalized all of those aspects with a device that used to be a desktop device that you put your head into now its a handheld device, much like an ice cream scooper has a little cup on it like that, that you put over the eye and the electrode that goes onto the lower eyelid and attaches to the device. And then a series of flashing lights that trigger the electrical activity in the eye and auto correct any errors in it, getting a valid test. And once a valid test is done, it notifies the user of that. And they put it into a little holster and that holster sends it over the internet to our reading center. And then we send the report back to them. Richard Miles (24:52): Is something that if you went to your doctor, it would only be done if you were diabetic or is this potentially something you would do as a normal battery things that physician’s assistant will do before you see your primary care physician or is that over kill? Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (25:05): So one of the critical elements of everything that we do is we try and make sure that there’s a very solid, scientific and clinical foundation behind it. So what we’ve done is we’ve only validated this approach for diabetic retinopathy at this point, electrophysiology of the eye is done for other conditions, such as glaucoma. Hypertension can also make some changes in the eye, but we haven’t validated that clinically, but those are some future applications that we had anticipated will happen. Richard Miles (25:31): Wow that sounds exciting. So usually what I’d like to do is give everyone on the show, a chance to dispense the many nuggets of wisdom that they’ve accumulated in their scientific and entrepreneurial journeys. And so I’m guessing that from time to time, you were asked for advice maybe from other startups or even other physicians who might be thinking of something similar, have you accumulated a short list of things that you wouldn’t do again, knowing what you know now or pitfalls you definitely stay away from if you were say, asked to serve as a consultant to somebody else’s business. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (26:00): Yeah. I think one of the real lessons that I’ve learned is that perseverance is probably as important as brilliance or intelligence in this game. Is that really persevering with the idea believing in it? And then when the naysayers come, it’s much easier to say no to something than to say, Oh yes, that’s wonderful. That was work. So I think you have to have perseverance and you have to be a little bit immune to some of the critique and criticism that are out there. Even from environments like the academic environment. Some of the harshest critique we took was actually from our research and development group at the university that was supposed to be supporting us for doing this. We had to work through constitutional amendment to the state constitution, which prohibited faculty from participating in equity positions in company. And so we have to work through a lot of these different issues in order to be able to even achieve it. Now, fortunately, we paved the path for other people to do it, and it’s a leisure to doing it, but they’re facing other challenges as a result. But I think perseverance is one of the key things. And I think the other one is really having a solid foundation for what you’re doing. That’s based in scientific merit, particularly in medical applications that has the validation to it always gives you the high road. And so when you face those challenges, knowing that you have that behind you, I think it’s a very, very powerful tool. Ultimately, sometimes it’s harder to sell people on that because they don’t believe you can do it, but once you can prove that you can do it, then I think it becomes a real selling point. Richard Miles (27:29): Right, because there’s nothing like confidence in your product. If you know it works, then it’s that much easier to go out and tell other people, I guess in many cases it’s a chicken and egg thing, right. You know that a certain trial probably will confirm or make confirm, but you need money to do that trial. And so how do you split the difference? Like, you know, I’m very, very confident, but I’m not certain and get somebody to fund that. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (27:49): The other lesson that you learn is that leadership in a company like this is lonely, it’s lonely at the top because ultimately somebody has to make the call. What’s your priority and spending, are you doing it on marketing? Are you doing it on research? Research people are pulling for more data, the marketing people just want more money, so they can go out and tell the message, right? And so you have to make all of these decisions, how much to invest in technology. And so when you’re making that final decision, I think you really have to think about what are the basic principles that you’re going for. What are the metrics that you’re using to assure that your decision is a good decision, then how do you implement that decision and not lose your organization. Richard Miles (28:25): The other comment I was going to make Lloyd is when you said that you didn’t get the support, maybe you’re expecting from the academic community. I was gonna say, I’m shocked, shocked to hear that that would take place pettiness in academia. And it reminds me of that famous. I think it’s a Henry Kitchener quote in which he said the fights in academia are so vicious because the stakes are so small. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (28:43): Well, that’s right in academics. And in a lot of ways is a very individual sport too, right? It’s a lot about how do I develop my own career and how do I prosper in that career? And so each individual achievement has to be allocated to somebody. And so that is one of the challenges. The second one is that entrepreneurship wasn’t typically viewed as part of the academic journey. And now I think a lot of those things have changed in some of the academic settings and entrepreneurship actually does count for some of that. So I think those are good changes. Richard Miles (29:13): Yes. And you’ve made a very impressive and rare transition, most academics. In fact, most academic adventures at some point say, you know, this is just not worth it. And I’m going to either get bought or let this go to somebody else. Although I guess you had the best of both worlds you got bought and you kept going, so that’s even better, but I commend you for sticking with it Because it is a tough road, lots of very bright, energetic, committed people who don’t ultimately succeed through a combination of circumstances. So congratulate you on doing it. Not once, but twice. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (29:40): I tell my children find something you do in life that makes it easy to get up in the morning. And usually that means that you find something significant. And when you experience a blind person and particularly somebody that’s blinded from something that was avoidable preventable or treatable, then you really realize the pain and suffering that you can prevent by doing something significant is really relevant to the world. And it’s meaningful. And I think that’s the main thing that drives me. I work in other blindness prevention programs internationally as well, cataract blindness that’s for example, and all of these activities I think are centered on this focus that I’ve tried to put into my career, which is how do we leverage information technology to give us better clinical tool. We have a lot of administrative tools in medicine that really encumber us more than they help us. So I’m really focused much more on the clinical side. It’s how do we get good tool to help us do this? And that was part of the work in AI that I’m very interested in continuing to foster as well. Richard Miles (30:35): Lloyd, thank you very much. These have been very inspiring, encouraging words. My takeaway from this is I need to start booking more Canadians clearly. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (30:43): That’s probably a good thing to do. Richard Miles (30:46): Right, thanks very much for being on Radio Cade and hope to have you back at some point. Dr. Lloyd Hildebrand (30:49): Absolutely. Thank you very much for the opportunity. It was a pleasure. Outro (30:53): Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists, Jacob Lawson.

A big problem for most prosthetics is they don’t send sensory information back to the brain. Until now. Dr. Ranu Jung and her team at Florida International University (FIU) have developed a device that restores the sense of touch and hand grasp when someone is using their prosthetic hands. This technology could eventually be applied to other non-functioning parts of the body. A finalist for the 2020 Cade Prize for Innovation, Dr. Jung is head of the Biomedical Engineering Department at FIU, and the holder of multiple patents. Dr. Jung, who immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1983, credits the “can-do” spirit of her parents for her persistence and sense of discovery. *This episode is a re-release.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from The Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles (00:40): A neural enabled prosthesis. That is a hand that actually feels like a hand for people who have lost them. Welcome to Radio Cade, I’m your host Richard Miles. Today I’ll be talking to Dr. Ranu Jung professor and chair of the biomedical engineering department at Florida International University. The holder of multiple patents and a finalist for this year’s Cade Prize for Innovation. Congratulations and welcome to Radio Cade, Dr. Jung. Dr. Ranu Jung (01:04): Thank you, Richard, for giving me this opportunity to be on Radio Cade. I’m excited about talking to you. Richard Miles (01:10): So Ranu, if it’s okay. If I call you Ranu, you’ve been at Florida International University for about 10 years now, but you’ve also spent time at Arizona State University, University of Kentucky and Case Western University in Cleveland. But you started life in New Delhi, India and came to the United States in 1983. So the first thing I’d like to ask, you’ve had a very illustrious career in academia, but I’m very curious about what was your first impression of the United States? What did you think when you stepped off the plane, were you excited to, do you think you’d made a really big mistake? Dr. Ranu Jung (01:42): That’s a long time ago, but I was excited because I was going to be able to follow a dream and I had come specifically to follow biomedical engineering. So I came into New York and I actually drove with a family friend from New York to Cleveland. And so what a way to get welcomed to the United States going across the whole of the East coast to the Midwest. It was just absolutely, absolutely fantastic. The whole, the whole beginning, as, as I recollect, it’s been a long time ago now. And the other thing in Cleveland was the welcoming nature of us Americans, because another graduate student who was starting in the program had already reached out to me and sent a letter to me saying, would you be interested in being my roommate? So I was really looking forward to meet Ruth tan Bracey who was going to be this new roommate for me. So it was a very, very exciting trip. Richard Miles (02:35): That’s a great experience. And you probably know this by now, but that is exact route. A lot of early settlers took as we sort of open up the frontier is going from New York through Ohio and further. And that was the frontier at the time. So what a great way to get introduced to the United States? Dr. Ranu Jung (02:50): Absolutely. Richard Miles (02:51): Let’s talk about your current work and this is what you are in the finalist for the Cade Prize for Innovation, but it’s obviously you’ve been doing this for awhile and I understand it correctly. You and your team at FIU, Florida International University have developed a prosthetic hand that can actually transmit neural signals to the brain so that a person without a hand can actually feel and control the prosthetic far better than a normal one. That sounds really complicated to me. I don’t know if I described it correctly, but tell us how it works and how did you come up with the idea? Dr. Ranu Jung (03:20): Yeah. So think about when you touch something, right? You’re, you’re what you feel, or you’ve touched somebody’s face. How do you feel about it? Or you grasp something you don’t really think about it much, right? You just pick up and you automatically know it’s hard, it’s soft, you don’t crush it. And if you touch somebody, you have all the sensations associated with it. Now, if somebody loses their hand for many reasons, often it’s because of trauma. Then what are their choices? The choices for them are to get a prosthetic hand. And currently there are prosthetic hands that are available, to, what we call upper limb amputees. Who have lost their hand, that the person can already control. So the way it works is that when we use our own hand, the muscles in our forearms contract and relax, and when they contract and relax, your hand opens or closes, or your fingers will open and close into the whole mechanism that happens. When you have an amputation, the muscles that are above the level of the amputation, that person can still control them. So if you can record the activity of those muscles and that is done with electrodes that are placed on the skin, one of the examples that’s the most common is like an EKG system, right? So putting the sensor is on there, those signals are picked up and they can be used to drive motors in the prosthetic hand. This is commercially available and there are different levels of prosthetic hands that are available that are simple to close, or there may be now new better prosthetic hands. So there are many that are available like that, but what is missing is how do you get sensation back. So there has been some attempt of saying, let’s take some information back and put a vibratory signal on this pin. So there’s approaches like that, that have been done. But what we went about saying is how could we give a better sensorial experience that would interface this information when somebody is touching something or grasping? So basically what our system is, it’s not designing the prosthetic hand. It is designing this whole interface with the nervous system to restore, hopefully this whole sensory experience. So in this case, what we have done is we have said, all right, let’s look at the prosthetic hand. If the prosthetic hand had sensors in it, can we tap into the sensory information? We process this sensor information to make sense of what is coming out from different parts of the sensors. And then we take that information and pass it on as commands through a wireless link, to a small neurostimulator that is implanted under the skin in the upper arm of the amputee. So what do I mean by a wireless link? You know, when you listen to the radio, there is somewhere a radio station that is sending out radio waves. So there’s a transmitting and an antenna and in your radio, and you’re now in your phone, there is some kind of receiving antenna. So these radio waves are going back, taking the information and passing it from the transmitting system, long distance into this antenna embedded inside some radio or a device, and it’s picking it up and it’s being coded. And you do hear the sound now, step into our system. You’re not sending radio waves all along very far distance, but we have a transmitting antenna that’s connected to the outside of the skin. And that’s what is connected to a little box that is inside the prosthetic, where all the processing has happened. And the receiving antenna is right underneath the skin below. There are no wires going back and forth. So it’s a wireless connection. Now this receiving antenna is connected to a neurostimulator. What’s a neurostimulator is like a pacemaker, but now your similator is connected to very, very fine wires like human hair. And these fine wires are threaded through the nerves in the upper arm. So again, reminding you, it’s an amputee who has a forearm that is gone, the hand is gone. They can control their muscles in the leftover arm, open and close the prosthesis as they close, the prosthesis back and forth. Signals are going to come back in. We are going to process them. We you’re going to communicate those through this wireless link to the implanted antenna. And that implanted antenna connected to a stimulator connected to fine wires inside nerves. So we give little charges of electrical pulses. When these pulses are delivered, the nerves get activated more precisely the nerve fibers that are inside the nerves get activated. And these nerve fibers would have originally carried sensor information from your hand or some of the nerve fibers are going the other way and are controlling the muscles. So when these nerve fibers get activated, then now this biological neural signal goes into the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the brain and right there in the brain, there is where a person perceives. So the whole point here is, as we do a task, as you reach out, as you touched something with your prosthetic hand, you hold it, you squeeze something, but you’re not looking at it and your eyes are closed. Or maybe you can’t even hear it. You get a sense of touch or you understand what you’re grasping and how strong you are grasping it. So with this ability, we can do this. It might even embody that prosthetic hand into the person’s body. And if that happens, then perhaps this will become really much more a part of the person with the sensory loop factor. They may improve their control and that’s one aspect, but the richer sensorial experience may also embody the prosthetic hand better. And that might make people use the prosthetic hands more. And that has many other benefits. For example, they may be compensating with their other hand to do things, but now they may use this prosthetic hand, for example, or a plastic bottle with water in it. If you don’t know how much you’re squeezing out the water. So usually you would not use that prosthetic hand to do it. You’ll use your other hand. You would use compensatory methods. So our system is to restore the sensation through this neural interface. Richard Miles (09:23): That’s a great explanation. And this happens to me every year when we run the Cade Prize. I read the application. I think I understand the technology, but it’s not until talking to the inventor that I finally understand what the real breakthrough is, because it sounds like, as you said, the current state of the art is essentially one way communication only, right? You’re sending to the hand, the hand can open, close and so on, but it’s that feedback loop that is missing. And because there’s no feedback loop, you have somebody who doesn’t really feel like this is a part of them and not really delivering what they want it to and they end up not using it. Dr. Ranu Jung (09:56): Yeah. So we are really closing the loop. There is some feedback, obviously, if you have models in the system and people are very adapt, we are very, very good at doing things and they learn how much I open and close my hand. So they have learned a lot of that aspect they have learned. So it’s not like there is zero feedback and vision is a huge feedback. So if you’re looking at things that you can do a lot of stuff just by looking at it and seeing how much repetitive training you can do that, but it’s paying attention, not having to second guess yourself. It is having the confidence to reach out to things. All of those things are not there when the loop is not closed. Richard Miles (10:34): So a couple of questions come to mind, would this, in theory, at least as you develop the technology and improve, it, would it enable people who’ve lost a hand for instance, to engage in finer motor skills because they have the feedback or does that not really make a difference? Dr. Ranu Jung (10:47): Well, we hope that that is going to make a difference to be able to do finer motor skills. There’ll be many things to take into account how dextrous is the prosthetic camp. That will be one of the things, but that’s the technology that then, and that’s part of the scientific question. What is that information? That one can process when it’s coming from this effectively, to some extent an artificial sensor system, right? Do we really need a lot, or do we only need a few things about the cochlear system for hearing, right? They’re not people who have lost hearing. It’s not like every single sound and every single nerve is being stimulated, but they are interpreting sound. They are reading music. It is become part of the life. When you read, you don’t read each letter, you read words, you fill the gap, you put the whole thing together. We don’t know how many gaps you could effectively have in the sensor information and the person we are fantastic brains. So what we will do to put all of that together, but yes, it might help us with finer motor control. It might also help with things like picking up lighter weight objects. If it’s a heavy thing, something heavy, you are picking up, you know, rest of your arm is going to feel heavy and you will get information back. But what if people are picking up small things, like a towel at home, and you are pulling it, folding that light towel and pulling it. Yeah. The person would contract their muscles really hard and squeeze it really hard and pull it. But if they have the courage, they will know I already touched it. I already have it. I don’t have to squeeze. My muscles really had to clamp system. So over time fatigue, short term to make a difference. Long term use will impact the muscles. So all of these will be questions to ask. So you need the system first, you need the technology first. And then you can start to ask these questions and start to ask just pure science questions. How does our brain interpret information? What happens when you have, for a long time use of compensatory strategies, things have changed in the brain, perhaps. How do you pull all of this stuff together? So it opens up Pandora’s box. Richard Miles (12:48): I imagine, as soon as you solve one question, it just raises probably five more questions. In theory, could this also be applied to feet into legs? Or is there something about this technology that lends itself only to doing hands Dr. Ranu Jung (13:00): You are absolutely right. This can be extended to many different levels. So right now our indication is for somebody who has lost their forearm and their hand, but you wouldn’t think of it first portions of the upper arm, right? Then you can think about it as people who have lost their lower limbs. Actually what we have, what our technology is, is really think. We can take a signal and based on the signals, we can do targeted, focused stimulation inside the nerves. That’s what the technology is. This application is sensor information to go to our nerves that are going to communicate with the brain to give some information for prosthetic hand, but that’s not necessarily the only application. So in the very long run, you could think about saying, Oh, I’m going to stimulate another nerve. That’s a control system, right? And now are based on a signal that I’m going to get that says, there’s a problem with the stomach or the spleen. For example, in the diabetes situation, I will use that signal to stimulate those nerves because we are inside the nerve. We can do very focused stimulation. And so maybe that would be the application that is going to be the killer application. So to speak that you can do a very targeted stimulation of nerves going to organs within the body that would move us into the bioelectronic medicine, right? So pure thinking comes up at the bigger expanse in which the system could work. There are many pathways could be there, but our first application, our focus right now is to restore sensation to people who have lost their hands. Richard Miles (14:36): That’s really exciting. That would be huge. If that could be developed for other areas of the body. This targeted neurostimulation. Tell us where you are in terms of testing. I know that in the case of the hand, the prosthetic, you want to test this sort of in as much of a real world environment as possible. Tell how that’s going. And then what sort of path to market does it look like for you? Are we talking about years away from something that could be widely available for amputees? Or is this something that we’re going to see fairly soon? Dr. Ranu Jung (15:03): So this is what is called a class, it would fall under, what’s called a class three medical device. It’s because of the implanted neurostimulator that that is there. So the first step that we had to do was to go to the FDA to get approval for what is called an investigational device exemption in order to be able to run a clinical trial. So we did that. Not many academic labs will take technology such as this all the way through the pathway, to the FDA while companies often do it. And of course, large companies are doing the Medtronic and Boston Scientific is doing this all the time, but it’s not usual for an academic lab to have taken it from the scratch, something to the FDA. So we got the investigational device exemption. And so now we are in the process of running a feasibility clinical trial. And what that means is that we will be doing a small sample size of people who have a translatable amputation at first. And putting them through use of the system the way we have it. This is a longterm take home study. So you would do things for about three months in the lab. So after you get the implant, you would come into the lab, it’s a person I speak to you. So we would make sure you’re fit. And of course we want to collect additional data about how you are doing control of things. You will find some for a large, bigger control. Can you close your eyes and say it’s soft or hard or big or small things like that? What do you feel like when you open zip things up or squeeze water bottles? So we do that in the lab and then after three months, the person will take it home and then they will come back for the next three months, a little more often. And then they’ll come back for some data collection in the lab for up to two years. So we want to collect the data, but the system is then there’s to keep. You know, the implant is hopefully the way we have designed it, it’s for life. So the internal part doesn’t change. There’s no battery inside. So you don’t have to undergo another surgery to replace depleted batteries, all the powers with both from outside. And as we’re coming up with new algorithms outside, we have smarter prosthetic hands that may come in place. Then the outside can all be upgrade. So that’s also a throught through modular design aspect of it. So we are currently in this clinical trial. One person has completed 28 months of use more than 24 at home. And we are currently recruiting people. Once we recruit these people for one site, we also have received funding from the Army to move it to a second site, which would be the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. We have to go back to their VA and we’ll back to the IRB to get approvals for increasing the number of people in the disability file and for the second site. And in case we will also try to see approvals for somebody who has amputations on both sides of bilateral amputee. We believe that this sensory feedback step is going to be really much more important for people who have lost both hands, even more so than somebody who has lost one of them. So once that happens, then we can go to the next step. We have just been accepted, absolutely delighted that we have just been accepted by the NIH in a program, which is called clinic to commercialization CPI program. And that program, our team was just accepted into that part. And that will take us for about 24 months to put a whole business framework in place. So we are expecting that by next year, we will have transcends, we have ideas of how we are thinking about our business framework, but we would start to strengthen that and we’ll start putting that in place. And while the feasibility trial is going on, and of course the feasibility trial has to go well for all of that to put it together. And so probably the first place we would have people in the Army, that’s where we would probably look to think the first deployment, but the clinical trial is funded by the National Institutes of Health and then new, additional monies from the US Army. So it would be open to all the civilians and it will be opened later to also people through the world to reach. So in a few years, we hope that this is going to be getting ready to be real commercialized. Richard Miles (19:17): So Ranu, I have to ask you, how do you spend your average day? Cause what you just listed in terms of your, to do list, I think would require about five or six people. So I’m guessing you’re not the one that’s doing all of this. You have people around you helping you, giving you advice. What do you focus on? Are you continuing to do a line share of the actual research? Or are you thinking about how do we actually get this into the hands of the people that need it? Dr. Ranu Jung (19:40): This is a partnership, as you said, this is not a one person job. This is a partnership. It’s an epidemic in this preclinical partnership. A lot of it has been so far in academia. I have the best team I can talk about. It is a long term partnership. It’s not two years. One year, three years. It’s about 10 years or more. I was talking to James Abbas at Arizona State who has been from the initial concept is research scientists who came same time. I came here, who used to be here. He was my doctoral student, but decided to become an engineer. And then now he’s actually going back to do his PhD another one, my old, old grad students have come back as well. I recently graduated grad student who works on the project is spending doing a post doc and is actually taking this commercialization pathway for what it’s a team. So what do I do in this team? Because we have cross-training so it’s not one person for one thing, but we do the regulatory work in high school. The implant was done right here in Miami, by doctor Aaron Burglar from the Nicholas Children’s Hospital. And obviously we have industry partners to make the implants. If we can make them think of like the computer manufacturers who have to buy things from different places, right. We can tell them the design, but it has to be somebody who can make medical products to be able to put an implant in there. And bof course we partnered with prosthetic manufacturers for making the prosthetic hand. So what do I do? I am like the orchestra manager for all of it, but I am officially the sponsor of the trial and the principal investigator of the trial. So I take the responsibility for all of that, all of the negotiations, the legal negotiations and all of that part. I discuss those, all the FDA submissions. I will read them and I will update them and I will review them, but I’m not writing from scratch. And it’s over years that has happened. I’m also not writing the program level details. The research scientists are doing, we will discuss, this is what we need to do. This is what we need support, but they are the ones writing the framework and putting all of that code in there. So to speak, what algorithms, what should they capture? So you can think of it as I’m putting the book in place, the chapter organization in place. But the exact words of how you are going to put in that paragraph are written by the engineers and scientists and graduate students that are involved and undergraduate students are involved, Richard Miles (22:03): Ranu, one of the questions we asked normally if inventors and entrepreneurs and we’re fascinated by it at the Cade Museum is well, what was the inspiration behind their story? And you’ve said that you were inspired by your parents and their can do spirit. Your father was a metallurgical engineer. Your mother was a school teacher taught English in India. How did they influence your decision to go into engineering? Dr. Ranu Jung (22:23): Not in a direct manner to say you should go into engineering because they themselves were doing what they wanted to do. They were pursuing new things. So right from early childhood, it was, you can do whatever you want to do. So it wasn’t that, Oh, you should do this or you should do that. So I think them taking that risk, and as I mentioned earlier to you, this was post India independence and a new industrialization happening to be coming in place. So my father who is going to be close to 19 and one of the first engineers and they were all doing this every day and you watch them do it. So you saw him come back and say, we broke this record of the blast furnaces. We melted this much iron ore today. So you saw that kind of atmosphere, you know, this allowed you to think and say, Oh yeah, what could I do? What would I want to do? And so that was the inspiration. And it was an interesting time to be in India. At that time in Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. I still remember going to a rally and listening to this woman, giving a speech. And I think that whole ecosystem was encouraging the children to dream and no boundaries that you need to stay here. You need to stay with the family. So they left their parents and their families to go to this new city and build that up. And for their children, they said, you have the world. You can go wherever you want to go to a very special time in history and a special city be raised in with a group of young entrepreneurial parents we were like a cohort, but then that’s what it was. You know, Richard Miles (23:52): What I find fascinating too is I know is that you actually consider going into medicine instead of engineering, and then you chose engineering, but now sort of the peak of your career, you’re in bioengineering, right? And ultimately you’ve got to have both things you wanted. Dr. Ranu Jung (24:04): And I have to say, undergraduate students going into research lab, they really should explore. And that’s how I found out about that. There is a potential possibility. There was a professor who had a lab called problem oriented research lab. And he had actually just spent maybe a semester in the US I don’t know exactly how long and come back. And he started this lab where they would bring medical instrumentation for an electronic blood pressure cuff. Oh, I could have a combination of all this electronic stuff. My major was electronics and communications and things. I could have been doing radar. And instead I said, Oh, there’s a place I could combine it. But there was nothing in biomedical engineering in India. I even interviewed to sell x-ray machines for a company, so I could get into the medical field, but then getting this opportunity to do grad school at Case Western it really, really a fantastic graduate program. That was the opportunity that helped me solidify my passion and this, I found a place that would be good. Richard Miles (25:03): I asked you earlier about what would your advice be to other researchers and entrepreneurs? And you wrote that one piece of advice would be don’t cross out ideas too fast because ideas are too early. So why don’t we explore that a little bit? How do you keep a good idea alive? Let’s say as a researcher, for which there may not be funding right away, or there may not be a commercial application right away, but you know, it’s a good idea. How do you keep those going? Dr. Ranu Jung (25:28): So let me tell you this idea of interfacing with the nervous system and think of it as out what we call a bio hybrid system, a bionic system, and this together, this idea of pulling this together and interfacing was way back when I was just graduated from my postdoc. And I worked with a professor named Davis Cohain and we were studying lamprey eels. They are like eels. And we looked at the spinal cord and how the spinal cord works and what helps to do the movement and was like, what if we could do a combination of a electronic circuit that mimics part of the spinal cord and interface it with this, I could do the simulations. I could do the experimental prep. I could not make the actual chip hardware, because that was not my background. I went to a summer course. I learned about it. And I came back and said, I gotta find it. Electrical engineering friend who is faculty member who will be willing to put this into hardware, found one practice with her for a few years. She went and did the course came back and we actually then put it into a physical thing. And we interfaced it with this grant. We’ve got a grant from NIH, which was called the a21. A futuristic grant to say, we can take an electronic chip and you’re hearing the word neuro morphic. Now this is now in there talking about in early 1990s, pick up the spinal cord from the lamprey. You can put it into a fluid bag and you can maintain it. And the spinal cord will be activated. We then connected it to this chip and close the loop. And we could show that the electronic chip and the spinal cord activity can go next to each other. I had a very tough time position that who would ever interface these pains, but the living system, what a crazy idea. Okay. So we got into a journal. I was thinking, this should go into science. It never did, but we did get there 10, 15 years later, somebody in the Army saw this paper. This was in the Iraq war. So I founded a small company because who needed a company for this. And we got funding where we basically said, if you’re focused injured, you will be stabilized in a false boot underneath it. We will put a small fall spot this spot would we be controlled with a circuit? Hey, what was that stuff like? The spinal cord circuits that we had done way back there. And this spinal cord circuit will be driven by sensors that pick up when the person starts to move. So if your upper leg is okay, as you start to move, there is make movement that will drive that file for circuit, that electronics that moves the food, that is the boot. And so the person can stick their foot into the stabilized park, the false foot, and you can wear this boot and you could walk out of there. And we actually demonstrated that on a person in the lab. So what forward even further, a few years, and this happened around the same time as I got funding for this neural interface thing to me. So I’m thinking all of this and saying, how are we combining electronic interfaces? So it has changed pace, but I idea has moved that you can link artificial systems with living systems and close the loop so that you’ve got, this merger, this bio hybrid system, where one is impacting the other, where will we go. Will we have adaptive engineered systems because our engineered systems that’s feeling not adapted enough. Where will it go? I think they will. Now you’d hear about neuromorphic word. Major companies are doing it, everybody’s doing it. So who knows where this is going to go? Where will this organic inorganic link happen? I’m talking about early 1990s. And we were the first people to show that you can interface an electronic circuit in a living spinal cord. It isn’t a bat. It’s not in the person walking or animal walking per se, but it was a living system. And today we are looking at saying, how can we interface? What are we doing with interfacing in electronic system with a real person and putting them into this room and hoping that this is going to actually improve their whole self, their ability to do different tasks. But most importantly to have is some [inaudible]. Richard Miles (29:35): I’m pretty sure I never heard the term neuromorphic until probably 2012, 2013, right around there. And I’d never heard of the term before. I thought it was brand new. I had no idea. It had been around since early nineties. Dr. Ranu Jung (29:47): Our paper is published with saying your morphic army grant is neuromorphic something. So it was way in the infancy of when that stuff was being talked about. Carver Mead from Caltech had been talking about it. I was very, very fortunate to have is Cohen and worked with her. I met her at the summer course at Woods Hole, Massachusetts on competition neuroscience. You never know where it can get you. So my PhD advisor, Peter Catona who I call him my academic father, who always gave me this type of saying, explore, explore. There was no idea, too crazy to be taken up. There was not this whole, we don’t do this, or you can’t do this. Richard Miles (30:25): Ranu, clearly our judges have done a great job in advancing you to our finals this year. I’m very excited to learn about what you’re doing. I hope it succeeds. I hope we can have you back at some point on the show to talk about updates. Again, want to congratulate you on making finals, but also just more broadly on the work that you have done currently at Florida International University, really enjoyed talking to you. So thank you for coming on the show today. Dr. Ranu Jung (30:46): Thank you Richard look forward to returning. Outro (30:49): Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

“I remember early in my career,” says Gary Miller, “attending orthopedic conferences just listening to the surgeons talking to each other. You build a vocabulary of what they’re talking about.” Miller is the co-founder of Exactech, a Florida company which develops and manufactures orthopedic implants, and the holder of 14 US patents. He talks with James Di Virgilio about his first invention, the innovative process, and the need for inventors and end-users to speak a common language. *This episode is a re-release.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio (00:39): Innovation. Does it follow a specific path? Is it spontaneous? Is it something that we can plan for ahead of time? My guest today is Gary Miller, the co founder, and executive VP of research and development at Exactech. Gary, you’ve done so many things in your career. Your first let’s call official, right? Patented innovation was called the cemented hip. Yes? Gary Miller (01:05): No. James Di Virgilio (01:06): Not your first? Gary Miller (01:07): No, no. That was years later, but it did involve cement. My first invention, I was actually, by that time on the faculty, in the college of medicine, I was a researcher there as an engineer working in orthopedics and at the time, and still today, they have a very active bone tumor group. It’s really one of the foundational elements of that department. And we treated a lot of folks with metastatic disease. And when you have tumors in your bone, it’s very, very painful. And one of the things that we were trying to figure out is how to reduce the pain. And it turns out if you could reinforce that bone, it didn’t hurt as much. And my first invention was taking a metal rod, which was used for trauma or fractures and perforating the sides of that rod and using it as a long cannula to inject cement through. And that’s cement. So very liquidy viscous kind of material that hardens inside the body and leave the rod with the cement there, take the nozzle off and remove it. And that was the first foray for me into seeking an invention. I hadn’t even thought about patenting it and somebody suggested that’s a good idea. Why don’t you think about patenting it? And that led to that first patent for me. James Di Virgilio (02:21): Now, patents are often talked about, but are also very confusing. Did you find that to be true? The first patent you had to apply for like, what’s it like, how long does this take, what am I even patenting? Gary Miller (02:31): Absolutely. That patent world, the words, the phrases all mean something. And I think for an inventor, you know what the picture of it looks like, but in the patent world, it’s about the written claims. In fact, the pictures don’t matter. So that was very much new for me in my career. I was new in what I was doing and had that the good news was the university had patent attorneys on call that helped us do all that. And I really enjoyed that of the engineering and the law and continue to spend a lot of time to this day. I still do a lot of that kind of work because it’s a lot of fun to do. It can be very disappointing for the creative person. Oh, this is great. Nobody could have ever thought about that. Again. It used to be hard to find out whether it had ever been done because it was before the internet. Now in seconds you can find out by searching the internet and the US patent and trademark office, all the international offices now have online services. You can do basically a Google search. There’s Google patent is actually one of their products and get right into it very quickly. And you’ll find out well, half a dozen people have variations on this theme. And then if you do really want to pursue that patent, you’ve got to figure out what is in fact, new and inventive that somebody that skilled in the art of what you’re doing, wouldn’t have thought of it. And there’s an obviousness test that you have to perform. I’m not an attorney, but it’s a lot of fun being there because it really does help. You fine tune what you’re doing. Find out what’s really important about it. James Di Virgilio (04:04): Imagining that we’re in an operating room and we’ve got a surgeon and we have a patient, and then we have you. And then there’s me as an observer. And you’re watching the surgeon work. You’re seeing a medical device go in, it’s a hip or a knee, or it’s something that’s going to help the patient. You have two people you’re really serving there. You’re serving both the surgeon and the patient. And if it just works for the surgeon, but the patient’s like, Hey doctor, this is really painful. This is not working. I’m not feeling good and the surgeon thinking, but this is wonderful. Like how efficient this is. I can put this right in. It’s not successful. So you have two, and what you’re doing in this example, you have two end users two people that this matters the most to you, and you have to find a solution that works for both. That seems incredibly sensical. However, I think what you said is true. Oftentimes if you look at businesses or service models that don’t work, there’s so many layers between the person creating the solution and the person using the solution that the solution no longer works. How is it that you learn, as you’ve talked about off air to speak the language of the surgeon and the patient to find the proper solution, that’s an art and a science. I feel like. Gary Miller (05:08): It is. It’s an art and the sciences that takes a long time. And I liked the way you couched it. I don’t know that I was as efficient at it. Then as I like to think, I have become as you as an interview or no there’s good ways and not so good ways of trying to elicit responses, answers from people, being able to be conversant talking their language helps a lot. And I remember very distinctly first years of my career, attending orthopedic conferences, just listening to the surgeons, talking to each other, you build a vocabulary, you build an understanding of what they’re talking about. They use a different lingo than the engineer uses. The most effective teams are an engineer working with a surgeon who has a background or has learned the lingo of the engineer. So when I give out an engineering term, I don’t have to translate it for that person. So we can be talking about a design and a solution. And I’ll say, well, the stresses are going to be too high here. And they know what a stress is. And it doesn’t mean that you’re nervous about something. We’re talking about an engineering principle that resonates with them. So you get rid of the translator in the middle, if you will. So it can be very rapid fire. Most of the inventive work that I’ve done, I’ve always been surprised how, again, a little bit serendipitous, you’ll be working on a problem, working on a problem. All of a sudden this answer pops out for me. It’s usually not a solitary event. You’ll notice on my patents. I may have one or two that are just my invention, but I’ve shared ideas with people. Who’ve shared their ideas with me. And so I’m a co-inventor with folks and that’s the way patents are. That’s the way it should be. That all the people that created that inventive step should be included in the patent application and the eventual patent that efficiency can bubble. And they’re good folks to work with. And that’s so good folks to work with. And you’ll find that some people are very dogged in the solution that they brought to you. So what they’re really looking for is somebody to render their idea. That’s a very different kind of concept for me. I’ve been very lucky in my career that I haven’t been faced with that very often or when faced with it. I’ve usually been able to walk the person back to, I understand you have this answer, but could we talk about the question for a minute? Can we look at what the need is? And either work with me as a helper and translator to work with some of the brilliant minds that I’ve been able to work with. They’re people that design, that’s what they do. Engineering design in specific areas like medical devices. I’ve been really lucky and enjoyed immensely working with those kinds of creative minds. But when we talk to each other about, well, when did you finally figure that out? It’s the old adage? Oh, well I was taking out the garbage or I was in the shower. It’s when you stop thinking about something that you sometimes come up with your most creative ideas, I’d never been good at saying, okay, I’ve got this problem to solve. I’m going to sit down this morning and I’m going to spend the next hour. I blocked out the time to be creative or to be invented for me that doesn’t work. My mind doesn’t work that way. I have a bunch of stuff rumbling around in it. And every once in awhile at births an idea, and sometimes you could go for a long time. It’s the equivalent, I guess, to writer’s block when it just, it’s not there. It’s not there. James Di Virgilio (08:34): Is there pressure once you’ve innovated and created at a certain level to have to keep creating new things, you get to five, six, seven, eight patents, and it’s sort of like, Hey, Gary’s the guy. He can create stuff. He’s a visionary, he’s a creative. Do you feel that pressure build as you do more and more? Or is it just a thought where, Hey, if I have a good idea, I’m going to do it. And if I don’t, I don’t feel any pressure. Gary Miller (08:56): Two answers to your question. I don’t judge a person’s creativity or ability to solve unmet needs. I keep going back to that theme because I really believe in it to improve patient outcomes is another way to say it. It doesn’t have to result in a patent. Being the first in the market could be very valuable. Let’s just get it out there. Let’s just do it. If you look at the number of things that I’ve had, the opportunity to work on, the patents, don’t speak for the number of different things that we’ve done on the teams that I’ve worked on over the years, that’s sort of icing on the cake for me. I would be not telling you the truth. If I said that, getting that first one, which I still have, it’s all coffee spilled on it and everything else, but getting that first one and seeing it and seeing your name on it, it’s a validation of your inventiveness, if you will. But for me, it’s really about in the area I work in it’s about improving patient outcomes. There’ve been a lot of ideas that I and my colleagues have come up with that I would call me to, or people will come to you and say, well, three other companies had this, we need this one. We should make it. In some cases, you need to have that full bag. I go kicking and screaming in that direction sometimes. But finding that thing that hasn’t been solved out of that myriad of stuff and be able to come up with an answer to it that advances the art or the science that you’re in is what makes me tick. It’s what I love to do. So it’s a long way of answering your question, but there’s always stuff that I think we can improve. You know, I’ve been in this area of medical devices for over 40 years. Now that I think about it and still working on hips, one of the first implants that I developed, you mentioned it earlier, when I corrected it was a cemented hip and there were a lot of them on the market at the time. And working with an orthopedic surgeon who became my partner, Bill Petty, working together, the idea was, well, there’s all this stuff about cemented hips that work, but they don’t last for the lifetime of a patient. Could you get just one and be done those kinds of things. And we’re still advancing that art. And there are improvements it’s much faster to put them in, the instrumentation has improved, all of those kind of innovations contribute to that improvement in the patient outcome, because we all know it’s pretty obvious to a lot of people, the faster and better you can do something with the least amount of insult. In this case to the body, usually the better the outcome is going to be. And thinking back historically, when we used to judge, whether an implant was going to work very well, we thought about the 65 to 70 year old person that weighed 157 pounds. That was the standard that the first Food Drug Administration standards, had, imagine that today we all know people that are in their fifties or sixties that have arthritis that would benefit from a total joint replacement, for whatever reason. Sure. It would be better to get it later in life, but wouldn’t it be great if you then have a solution to that that lasts the patient’s lifetime and they’re in and out of the hospital the same day, it used to be a seven day hospital, stay in a very old population of folks. Now you hear about it and you see it on the news. You see it in your friends and family around a person. Well, I had my surgery one day and I was out the next day or two days later, walking around. Think about those improvements in four decades. Those are the kinds of things that you hear. That that’s what gets me excited. That’s, what’s nice about what we do. And I think there’s still a lot out there to improve and improve the experience for the patients and for the surgeons. It’s a lot of work doing a lot of these cases, standing there all day long and here, again, improving the instrumentation, working with surgeons to do what they think will work best. And time is a measure of that. Used to be years ago, you did two cases or three cases in a day, and now you could do five or six or more. And I say that primarily because you can double the number of patients that you can treat with the same resources for all intents and purposes, which is something that we as baby boomers get out there. We need to be able to do more cases. James Di Virgilio (13:14): What kind of environment do you need to be able to create and improve the world around you? We’ve talked on previous podcasts that the United States is significantly the leader in medical, technological improvements. It’s not even remotely close. It’s the US way ahead of Germany and everyone else. Why it’s a question that gets asked a lot you’re directly working in it? Why or what is the environment that allows companies like yours brains like yours and the US to innovate at a way higher level than what we see across the world? Gary Miller (13:45): Well, I think if I knew that that’s the $64,000 question, I don’t know that I have a great answer for you. I think one answer is we want, and in some ways, demand being healthy. And I put healthy in quotes, short on pain threshold, want to be able at age 55 to be able to play singles tennis and all those kinds of things. You don’t want to see yourself degrading if you will, and all those things you want to do. And I always joke if you lived your life backwards, you finally get the time when you can be out there playing and doing whatever and traveling, and you find your body giving out on you before you can do it. But back to your question, I’ve traveled to a lot of places outside the world had been really lucky to be able to lecture and be in those environments around the world. You know, it’s not fair to generalize probably, but you see people that have more deformity, they endure more pain before they get treatment, whether it’s because it’s not available. And it’s a vicious cycle. In some ways in the United States, we apply a lot of resources to creating an environment so that we can solve those problems as you were talking about. But I think that’s one of the answers. I don’t have a perfect answer for you. There are a lot of countries that do have niches though, within what we would now call the medical community, whether it’s drug development, the pharma industry, a lot of that happens outside of the United States, as you know, and a lot of computer assisted kinds of stuff happen in various places around the world as well. One of our divisions is in France that we’re works a lot on our computer assisted surgery happens to be an area in the South of France that does a lot of that kind of stuff. And it breeds itself. You have people that are working together, I think to do it well. It is a team sport and the United States creates a good playing field to use that analogy for engineers to both be trained and to be able to create careers in this area and do well at it. James Di Virgilio (15:48): Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on or creation or innovation, something that sticks out as like that one was really special. Gary Miller (15:57): You know I really don’t. I talk about that rod that I worked on at the very beginning, that was very, very rewarding for me. Let me twist it a little bit for you. One of the nicest things that I see, one of the most rewarding things for me as an engineer working in medicine is you get that feedback of how you’ve done. It was amazing to me with that first experience as a person that was debilitated on heavy drugs, couldn’t really walk. And it’s an end of life experience. It’s metastatic bone cancer, but their quality of life was really awful because of pain. And after doing the procedure that we had created, the orthopedic surgeons and I at the hospital would get up the next day, even though they had had a surgical procedure and say, Oh, wow, this is great. They were ready to go. Similarly, a person with really bad arthritis. They can’t get in and out of a chair to have to use the arms of a chair. One of the things I always kid around with some people is try getting up from a chair with no use of your hands. You have to have good knees to do that. And your hips have to be functioning really well. One of the nice things that we get to do in biomechanics in the field that I’ve spent my career in is seeing that patient walk out of the hospital or getting up that first day and say, well, I know it hurts because I had surgery, but it doesn’t hurt like it did before my surgery. That’s the measure that we have. There’s other areas of engineering that it’s much harder to get a read on the success of what you’ve done. I think that one of the things I’ve enjoyed so much working in medical devices and working in biomechanics over the years and being in a clinical situation, their research areas are all those things and not to dismiss those that I need as a person, you need the tools and the toolbox to be able to do all the things that we do. We need the materials. We need some of the understanding of design that are done in a laboratory setting. I’ve worked my career in applied biomechanics, if you will, or applied biomaterials where I get to use some of those early inventive steps to create a product or a device, if you will, that goes into a patient or is used to put something in a patient. And it’s been tremendously rewarding for me because as I said, if we can give a surgeon the opportunity to do that extra case, that’s one more patient. That’s gonna not have to endure pain for an extra day. It’s all about that patient outcome thing resonates with me. And I’ve been lucky to be able to spend so many years just being in that sandbox. James Di Virgilio (18:29): I’m hearing so much passion and excitement and joy for what you do. And I’m wondering after a full career of doing all these things, when you wake up each day, are you just as excited about solving problems today as you were 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago? Gary Miller (18:44): Yeah. I am. I don’t know if I can get there as fast and do it as quickly, but yes, it’s a terrifically rewarding area to be, and it’s what keeps me going for sure. James Di Virgilio (18:55): I think that’s true of people in general. You know, my belief and philosophy in life is that we’re here. We’re created to be here. We’re created to attempt to improve the world around us and your energy. As I’m sitting 10 feet away from you is palpable. You can feel the satisfaction and the drive that you have to improve the world around you. And that’s what creativity and innovation does. Let’s bring this down to the listener, whether they’re 15 or they’re 50, and talk about this idea of problem solving, how do you teach somebody to have not the same passion you do? Cause we’re all created differently in that regard, but to maybe view the world that way, Hey, maybe you too can see some problems and begin to think about solving them. Can this be taught? Are you born with this? What is this? Like? Gary Miller (19:35): Yes. And yes, the folks that are successful, I do think bring that intellectual curiosity with them. They don’t take things for granted about how’s it working, what it’s doing. And so I think that is innate. I think because there are people that are frustrated that they can’t sometimes I wish it was totally teachable because we could use more people inventing, right? If you use my basic thesis of improving life, however, to answer your question more specifically, very structured ways of looking at things that if you learn those techniques, that you can be better at it. I’ve been asked this by students before when I lecture. And one of the things I love to do is mentor at this stage. If somebody is willing to listen to you about your experiences and how you solved it, you end up transferring both the passion and the technique. So yours is a very good question. There’s structured ways of doing it and being creative there’s skills that you can learn. You look at a solution and say, what happens if you turn it upside down? What happens if it’s backwards? They’re ways of brainstorming is a catch phrase that some people use where you put every which way, think you could do it down on paper without judging whether it would work or not. And then manipulating those images of what you thought about. It works really good in a group setting that people throw stuff out on the table, if you will, and you’re not allowed to critique whether it would work or not. The whole idea is to generate the most ideas. So there are techniques. There have been a lot of books written about it. There have been a lot of books written about a lot of things. And how many books have been written about how to become a millionaire? How many people read the book and become a millionaire? I think the same applies here. I have been impressed though that the tools have gotten more powerful for us. I remember 40 years ago, it was a drafting table and a pencil and scale and compass and drawing stuff. And if you wanted to make four sizes, you had to make four different drawings and you sat there with your slide rule and or a tablet of paper and added all the numbers up fast forward to today. When there’s three D rendering of computer assisted design, and you can look at it on the screen and you can make it larger and smaller and you can take four pieces like their fourth five pieces in a given joint replacement, put them all together, see how they move together. Those are incredibly powerful tools. And then you decide, well, I want the smallest one to be this size and I want the largest one to be this size. And then you can do the scaling if you will. And the system, the computer helps you. I have to tell you, I have yet to be able to be good at computer assisted design, but I work with people that are just, they blow your mind away. You’ll say something about this idea you have, and they’ll walk in and say, how about looking at this on my tablet used to be a desk size computer. Now it’s on a tablet if you will. So we’ve gotten really good and powerful tools. Testing has matured dramatically. We can’t use the person as the experiment here, and you’ve gotta be able to do a lot of simulation testing. A lot of those kinds of things, which were very hard to do in the past now because of the computing power we have, we’re able to make simulators that run an implant for 50 million, 20 million to look for the endurance. How’s it behaving all those kinds of things. And you can do a lot of things simultaneously. So between CAD simulation and all those things, it’s a far cry from what it was many years ago, when you had to build a prototype and try to test it in some way in a laboratory. And then honestly, in those days, once we thought we had it pretty close, we’d start using it. And it would be used in patients that needed it the most so that the risk reward was there. Now we can do a lot more and we can do it much more quickly. We talked about earlier about the length of time that it takes to do a design when everything works well, 18 months is not out of the question sometimes because of the regulatory overhead that we have. It takes longer than that. But in years past, it could take five years, seven, eight years, and then you weren’t anywhere near as sure about what the outcome was going to be. As I think we are now, they’re less small steps, James Di Virgilio (24:01): Words of wisdom. So here you are decades of experience. I want you to imagine going back in time and having a conversation with your 20 something self, what are two things you would tell yourself back then? Here’s what I want you to anchor to. As you go forward and you have this career doing all these things, remember these two things, Gary Miller (24:20): Be sure to listen and to watch what’s going on. That would be number one for me. And number two would be, I know you’re going to be asked to learn a lot of things that you don’t think you’re going to need to learn. And all I can tell you is I’ve used almost everything that I was taught, except for super higher math. I’ve never liked partial differential equations, and I’ve never had to use them, but I’d mentioned the tools in the toolbox to you earlier. I would tell a person earlier in their career, learn as much as you can keep learning it, keep learning new things, because you’ll never know when you might need to use it. And I could cite examples over and over again of things. I never thought I would be in business. That engineering economics class looked like a waste of time to me. And it’s helped me those on the finance side that say, I still don’t know how to read a balance sheet. What can I tell you, James? But at least I know what I don’t know. And sometimes you need to know what you don’t know. James Di Virgilio (25:22): There’s a lot of wisdom there, especially if you look at being a lifelong learner, having no idea where your life will take you. And then as you mentioned, maybe one of the most important things that I hope listeners pull from. This is what we’ve talked about. Indirectly sometimes directly about this concept of communication language, if you will, and if you’ve traveled at all, you can relate to what it’s like to drop yourself. I went to Asia many years back and you drop in the middle of China or Japan, and no one speaks a word of your language and you don’t speak a word of their language and you both could be brilliant people. And you’re reduced to hand signals, right? And as you mentioned, you want to go from hand signals to fluency in whatever language you have, and you have no idea what language is you’ll pick up throughout your time, whether yours is a mixture of engineering and finance and classes you’ve taken or life experiences you have and how they will cross over down the road. That’s very wise. Gary Miller (26:13): Yeah. I have examples of that in my own life and career. What I love to tell traveling in Spain, I speak minimal Spanish. And at the time I spoke absolutely no Spanish and went to dinner with one of those creative orthopedic surgeons like I was telling you about. And both of us were so frustrated trying to speak through the one person at the table who spoke English and Spanish. And after about 10 minutes, we both had our pens out and you’re going to laugh at me, but we kept moving the glasses and the plates out of the way. And we started drawing on the tablecloth. And so the visual became our medium for communication. And you were teasing me about cemented hips there earlier. We went through his idea of a hip design on that tablecloth and two napkins, as I recall, and we got to the end and we understood what each of us was trying to say. And it came to a pretty nice solution in design that we were able to move forward on. The only embarrassing thing was in this very nice restaurant in Spain, we had to have them take the tablecloth and the napkins off the table and wrap them up and give them to us because it was before cell phones and the only way to transport all this work we had done for two and a half hours at a classic Spanish dinner was to take the table with us. So it’s a fond memory. Obviously for me, I bet a wonderful group of people all over the world. And it comes down yes to hand signals and drawing, drawing. The visual is really without language usually. James Di Virgilio (27:45): And that’s one of the greatest things about doing this podcast, talking with you today is that it’s people, it’s people like you. If you’re listening and it’s people like Gary, it’s people that have ideas and get together with other people that have ideas and those ideas become a reality, right? The things you’ve created, those were humans, creating the ideas and putting them into play. It wasn’t some magical process. It didn’t happen on its own. What you’ve learned what’s in your brain is valuable. Working with others valuable. One of my favorite economic examples is Milton Friedman. You can find this on the internet does like a two minute video on the pencil, the humble pencil, but the pencil comes from so many different places all over the world, which is what allows it to be so cheap nowadays. Right? But at one point in time, it wasn’t so cheap, even just getting led was difficult. And we’ve talked a lot about a lot of these things today. I always find it very encouraging when we’re talking to someone who’s created as many things as you have to hear that it really does come back to what do you know, what do other people know? How can you get together, work together, find solutions to problems that exist. It’s been absolutely great to have you. My guest today, Gary Miller, the co founder of Exactech, also a man of many other things. We can’t just label you as that. And also on the board for the Cade Museum. I would remiss, if I didn’t say that. So thank you for all of your support and also for your time today, we certainly loved having you on Radio Cade. Gary Miller (28:55): Well, thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure. James Di Virgilio (28:58): For Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio. Outro (29:01): Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists, Jacob Lawson.

When Carolyn Yarina, today’s guest, walked into her university’s Center for Entrepreneurship one day as an undergraduate, she was convinced that she would never become an entrepreneur herself. “I remember tapping my foot, being impatient,” she recalls, laughing, “I couldn’t wait to get out of there, thinking that entrepreneurship wasn’t for me.” Fast forward to a few years later, and she is now the co-founder and CEO of Sisu Global, a company that is committed to providing medical technology which enables healthcare for each person in their own community. In this episode, host Richard Miles sits down with Yarina to learn more about Sisu Global and more specifically, Hemafuse, the company’s handheld, mechanical device for intraoperative autotransfusions, designed to replace or augment donor blood in emergency situations. TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio (00:39): Innovation. Does it follow a specific path? Is it spontaneous? Is it something that we can plan for ahead of time? My guest today is Gary Miller, the co founder, and executive VP of research and development at Exactech. Gary, you’ve done so many things in your career. Your first let’s call official, right? Patented innovation was called the cemented hip. Yes? Gary Miller (01:05): No. James Di Virgilio (01:06): Not your first? Gary Miller (01:07): No, no. That was years later, but it did involve cement. My first invention, I was actually, by that time on the faculty, in the college of medicine, I was a researcher there as an engineer working in orthopedics and at the time, and still today, they have a very active bone tumor group. It’s really one of the foundational elements of that department. And we treated a lot of folks with metastatic disease. And when you have tumors in your bone, it’s very, very painful. And one of the things that we were trying to figure out is how to reduce the pain. And it turns out if you could reinforce that bone, it didn’t hurt as much. And my first invention was taking a metal rod, which was used for trauma or fractures and perforating the sides of that rod and using it as a long cannula to inject cement through. And that’s cement. So very liquidy viscous kind of material that hardens inside the body and leave the rod with the cement there, take the nozzle off and remove it. And that was the first foray for me into seeking an invention. I hadn’t even thought about patenting it and somebody suggested that’s a good idea. Why don’t you think about patenting it? And that led to that first patent for me. James Di Virgilio (02:21): Now, patents are often talked about, but are also very confusing. Did you find that to be true? The first patent you had to apply for like, what’s it like, how long does this take, what am I even patenting? Gary Miller (02:31): Absolutely. That patent world, the words, the phrases all mean something. And I think for an inventor, you know what the picture of it looks like, but in the patent world, it’s about the written claims. In fact, the pictures don’t matter. So that was very much new for me in my career. I was new in what I was doing and had that the good news was the university had patent attorneys on call that helped us do all that. And I really enjoyed that of the engineering and the law and continue to spend a lot of time to this day. I still do a lot of that kind of work because it’s a lot of fun to do. It can be very disappointing for the creative person. Oh, this is great. Nobody could have ever thought about that. Again. It used to be hard to find out whether it had ever been done because it was before the internet. Now in seconds you can find out by searching the internet and the US patent and trademark office, all the international offices now have online services. You can do basically a Google search. There’s Google patent is actually one of their products and get right into it very quickly. And you’ll find out well, half a dozen people have variations on this theme. And then if you do really want to pursue that patent, you’ve got to figure out what is in fact, new and inventive that somebody that skilled in the art of what you’re doing, wouldn’t have thought of it. And there’s an obviousness test that you have to perform. I’m not an attorney, but it’s a lot of fun being there because it really does help. You fine tune what you’re doing. Find out what’s really important about it. James Di Virgilio (04:04): Imagining that we’re in an operating room and we’ve got a surgeon and we have a patient, and then we have you. And then there’s me as an observer. And you’re watching the surgeon work. You’re seeing a medical device go in, it’s a hip or a knee, or it’s something that’s going to help the patient. You have two people you’re really serving there. You’re serving both the surgeon and the patient. And if it just works for the surgeon, but the patient’s like, Hey doctor, this is really painful. This is not working. I’m not feeling good and the surgeon thinking, but this is wonderful. Like how efficient this is. I can put this right in. It’s not successful. So you have two, and what you’re doing in this example, you have two end users two people that this matters the most to you, and you have to find a solution that works for both. That seems incredibly sensical. However, I think what you said is true. Oftentimes if you look at businesses or service models that don’t work, there’s so many layers between the person creating the solution and the person using the solution that the solution no longer works. How is it that you learn, as you’ve talked about off air to speak the language of the surgeon and the patient to find the proper solution, that’s an art and a science. I feel like. Gary Miller (05:08): It is. It’s an art and the sciences that takes a long time. And I liked the way you couched it. I don’t know that I was as efficient at it. Then as I like to think, I have become as you as an interview or no there’s good ways and not so good ways of trying to elicit responses, answers from people, being able to be conversant talking their language helps a lot. And I remember very distinctly first years of my career, attending orthopedic conferences, just listening to the surgeons, talking to each other, you build a vocabulary, you build an understanding of what they’re talking about. They use a different lingo than the engineer uses. The most effective teams are an engineer working with a surgeon who has a background or has learned the lingo of the engineer. So when I give out an engineering term, I don’t have to translate it for that person. So we can be talking about a design and a solution. And I’ll say, well, the stresses are going to be too high here. And they know what a stress is. And it doesn’t mean that you’re nervous about something. We’re talking about an engineering principle that resonates with them. So you get rid of the translator in the middle, if you will. So it can be very rapid fire. Most of the inventive work that I’ve done, I’ve always been surprised how, again, a little bit serendipitous, you’ll be working on a problem, working on a problem. All of a sudden this answer pops out for me. It’s usually not a solitary event. You’ll notice on my patents. I may have one or two that are just my invention, but I’ve shared ideas with people. Who’ve shared their ideas with me. And so I’m a co-inventor with folks and that’s the way patents are. That’s the way it should be. That all the people that created that inventive step should be included in the patent application and the eventual patent that efficiency can bubble. And they’re good folks to work with. And that’s so good folks to work with. And you’ll find that some people are very dogged in the solution that they brought to you. So what they’re really looking for is somebody to render their idea. That’s a very different kind of concept for me. I’ve been very lucky in my career that I haven’t been faced with that very often or when faced with it. I’ve usually been able to walk the person back to, I understand you have this answer, but could we talk about the question for a minute? Can we look at what the need is? And either work with me as a helper and translator to work with some of the brilliant minds that I’ve been able to work with. They’re people that design, that’s what they do. Engineering design in specific areas like medical devices. I’ve been really lucky and enjoyed immensely working with those kinds of creative minds. But when we talk to each other about, well, when did you finally figure that out? It’s the old adage? Oh, well I was taking out the garbage or I was in the shower. It’s when you stop thinking about something that you sometimes come up with your most creative ideas, I’d never been good at saying, okay, I’ve got this problem to solve. I’m going to sit down this morning and I’m going to spend the next hour. I blocked out the time to be creative or to be invented for me that doesn’t work. My mind doesn’t work that way. I have a bunch of stuff rumbling around in it. And every once in awhile at births an idea, and sometimes you could go for a long time. It’s the equivalent, I guess, to writer’s block when it just, it’s not there. It’s not there. James Di Virgilio (08:34): Is there pressure once you’ve innovated and created at a certain level to have to keep creating new things, you get to five, six, seven, eight patents, and it’s sort of like, Hey, Gary’s the guy. He can create stuff. He’s a visionary, he’s a creative. Do you feel that pressure build as you do more and more? Or is it just a thought where, Hey, if I have a good idea, I’m going to do it. And if I don’t, I don’t feel any pressure. Gary Miller (08:56): Two answers to your question. I don’t judge a person’s creativity or ability to solve unmet needs. I keep going back to that theme because I really believe in it to improve patient outcomes is another way to say it. It doesn’t have to result in a patent. Being the first in the market could be very valuable. Let’s just get it out there. Let’s just do it. If you look at the number of things that I’ve had, the opportunity to work on, the patents, don’t speak for the number of different things that we’ve done on the teams that I’ve worked on over the years, that’s sort of icing on the cake for me. I would be not telling you the truth. If I said that, getting that first one, which I still have, it’s all coffee spilled on it and everything else, but getting that first one and seeing it and seeing your name on it, it’s a validation of your inventiveness, if you will. But for me, it’s really about in the area I work in it’s about improving patient outcomes. There’ve been a lot of ideas that I and my colleagues have come up with that I would call me to, or people will come to you and say, well, three other companies had this, we need this one. We should make it. In some cases, you need to have that full bag. I go kicking and screaming in that direction sometimes. But finding that thing that hasn’t been solved out of that myriad of stuff and be able to come up with an answer to it that advances the art or the science that you’re in is what makes me tick. It’s what I love to do. So it’s a long way of answering your question, but there’s always stuff that I think we can improve. You know, I’ve been in this area of medical devices for over 40 years. Now that I think about it and still working on hips, one of the first implants that I developed, you mentioned it earlier, when I corrected it was a cemented hip and there were a lot of them on the market at the time. And working with an orthopedic surgeon who became my partner, Bill Petty, working together, the idea was, well, there’s all this stuff about cemented hips that work, but they don’t last for the lifetime of a patient. Could you get just one and be done those kinds of things. And we’re still advancing that art. And there are improvements it’s much faster to put them in, the instrumentation has improved, all of those kind of innovations contribute to that improvement in the patient outcome, because we all know it’s pretty obvious to a lot of people, the faster and better you can do something with the least amount of insult. In this case to the body, usually the better the outcome is going to be. And thinking back historically, when we used to judge, whether an implant was going to work very well, we thought about the 65 to 70 year old person that weighed 157 pounds. That was the standard that the first Food Drug Administration standards, had, imagine that today we all know people that are in their fifties or sixties that have arthritis that would benefit from a total joint replacement, for whatever reason. Sure. It would be better to get it later in life, but wouldn’t it be great if you then have a solution to that that lasts the patient’s lifetime and they’re in and out of the hospital the same day, it used to be a seven day hospital, stay in a very old population of folks. Now you hear about it and you see it on the news. You see it in your friends and family around a person. Well, I had my surgery one day and I was out the next day or two days later, walking around. Think about those improvements in four decades. Those are the kinds of things that you hear. That that’s what gets me excited. That’s, what’s nice about what we do. And I think there’s still a lot out there to improve and improve the experience for the patients and for the surgeons. It’s a lot of work doing a lot of these cases, standing there all day long and here, again, improving the instrumentation, working with surgeons to do what they think will work best. And time is a measure of that. Used to be years ago, you did two cases or three cases in a day, and now you could do five or six or more. And I say that primarily because you can double the number of patients that you can treat with the same resources for all intents and purposes, which is something that we as baby boomers get out there. We need to be able to do more cases. James Di Virgilio (13:14): What kind of environment do you need to be able to create and improve the world around you? We’ve talked on previous podcasts that the United States is significantly the leader in medical, technological improvements. It’s not even remotely close. It’s the US way ahead of Germany and everyone else. Why it’s a question that gets asked a lot you’re directly working in it? Why or what is the environment that allows companies like yours brains like yours and the US to innovate at a way higher level than what we see across the world? Gary Miller (13:45): Well, I think if I knew that that’s the $64,000 question, I don’t know that I have a great answer for you. I think one answer is we want, and in some ways, demand being healthy. And I put healthy in quotes, short on pain threshold, want to be able at age 55 to be able to play singles tennis and all those kinds of things. You don’t want to see yourself degrading if you will, and all those things you want to do. And I always joke if you lived your life backwards, you finally get the time when you can be out there playing and doing whatever and traveling, and you find your body giving out on you before you can do it. But back to your question, I’ve traveled to a lot of places outside the world had been really lucky to be able to lecture and be in those environments around the world. You know, it’s not fair to generalize probably, but you see people that have more deformity, they endure more pain before they get treatment, whether it’s because it’s not available. And it’s a vicious cycle. In some ways in the United States, we apply a lot of resources to creating an environment so that we can solve those problems as you were talking about. But I think that’s one of the answers. I don’t have a perfect answer for you. There are a lot of countries that do have niches though, within what we would now call the medical community, whether it’s drug development, the pharma industry, a lot of that happens outside of the United States, as you know, and a lot of computer assisted kinds of stuff happen in various places around the world as well. One of our divisions is in France that we’re works a lot on our computer assisted surgery happens to be an area in the South of France that does a lot of that kind of stuff. And it breeds itself. You have people that are working together, I think to do it well. It is a team sport and the United States creates a good playing field to use that analogy for engineers to both be trained and to be able to create careers in this area and do well at it. James Di Virgilio (15:48): Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on or creation or innovation, something that sticks out as like that one was really special. Gary Miller (15:57): You know I really don’t. I talk about that rod that I worked on at the very beginning, that was very, very rewarding for me. Let me twist it a little bit for you. One of the nicest things that I see, one of the most rewarding things for me as an engineer working in medicine is you get that feedback of how you’ve done. It was amazing to me with that first experience as a person that was debilitated on heavy drugs, couldn’t really walk. And it’s an end of life experience. It’s metastatic bone cancer, but their quality of life was really awful because of pain. And after doing the procedure that we had created, the orthopedic surgeons and I at the hospital would get up the next day, even though they had had a surgical procedure and say, Oh, wow, this is great. They were ready to go. Similarly, a person with really bad arthritis. They can’t get in and out of a chair to have to use the arms of a chair. One of the things I always kid around with some people is try getting up from a chair with no use of your hands. You have to have good knees to do that. And your hips have to be functioning really well. One of the nice things that we get to do in biomechanics in the field that I’ve spent my career in is seeing that patient walk out of the hospital or getting up that first day and say, well, I know it hurts because I had surgery, but it doesn’t hurt like it did before my surgery. That’s the measure that we have. There’s other areas of engineering that it’s much harder to get a read on the success of what you’ve done. I think that one of the things I’ve enjoyed so much working in medical devices and working in biomechanics over the years and being in a clinical situation, their research areas are all those things and not to dismiss those that I need as a person, you need the tools and the toolbox to be able to do all the things that we do. We need the materials. We need some of the understanding of design that are done in a laboratory setting. I’ve worked my career in applied biomechanics, if you will, or applied biomaterials where I get to use some of those early inventive steps to create a product or a device, if you will, that goes into a patient or is used to put something in a patient. And it’s been tremendously rewarding for me because as I said, if we can give a surgeon the opportunity to do that extra case, that’s one more patient. That’s gonna not have to endure pain for an extra day. It’s all about that patient outcome thing resonates with me. And I’ve been lucky to be able to spend so many years just being in that sandbox. James Di Virgilio (18:29): I’m hearing so much passion and excitement and joy for what you do. And I’m wondering after a full career of doing all these things, when you wake up each day, are you just as excited about solving problems today as you were 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago? Gary Miller (18:44): Yeah. I am. I don’t know if I can get there as fast and do it as quickly, but yes, it’s a terrifically rewarding area to be, and it’s what keeps me going for sure. James Di Virgilio (18:55): I think that’s true of people in general. You know, my belief and philosophy in life is that we’re here. We’re created to be here. We’re created to attempt to improve the world around us and your energy. As I’m sitting 10 feet away from you is palpable. You can feel the satisfaction and the drive that you have to improve the world around you. And that’s what creativity and innovation does. Let’s bring this down to the listener, whether they’re 15 or they’re 50, and talk about this idea of problem solving, how do you teach somebody to have not the same passion you do? Cause we’re all created differently in that regard, but to maybe view the world that way, Hey, maybe you too can see some problems and begin to think about solving them. Can this be taught? Are you born with this? What is this? Like? Gary Miller (19:35): Yes. And yes, the folks that are successful, I do think bring that intellectual curiosity with them. They don’t take things for granted about how’s it working, what it’s doing. And so I think that is innate. I think because there are people that are frustrated that they can’t sometimes I wish it was totally teachable because we could use more people inventing, right? If you use my basic thesis of improving life, however, to answer your question more specifically, very structured ways of looking at things that if you learn those techniques, that you can be better at it. I’ve been asked this by students before when I lecture. And one of the things I love to do is mentor at this stage. If somebody is willing to listen to you about your experiences and how you solved it, you end up transferring both the passion and the technique. So yours is a very good question. There’s structured ways of doing it and being creative there’s skills that you can learn. You look at a solution and say, what happens if you turn it upside down? What happens if it’s backwards? They’re ways of brainstorming is a catch phrase that some people use where you put every which way, think you could do it down on paper without judging whether it would work or not. And then manipulating those images of what you thought about. It works really good in a group setting that people throw stuff out on the table, if you will, and you’re not allowed to critique whether it would work or not. The whole idea is to generate the most ideas. So there are techniques. There have been a lot of books written about it. There have been a lot of books written about a lot of things. And how many books have been written about how to become a millionaire? How many people read the book and become a millionaire? I think the same applies here. I have been impressed though that the tools have gotten more powerful for us. I remember 40 years ago, it was a drafting table and a pencil and scale and compass and drawing stuff. And if you wanted to make four sizes, you had to make four different drawings and you sat there with your slide rule and or a tablet of paper and added all the numbers up fast forward to today. When there’s three D rendering of computer assisted design, and you can look at it on the screen and you can make it larger and smaller and you can take four pieces like their fourth five pieces in a given joint replacement, put them all together, see how they move together. Those are incredibly powerful tools. And then you decide, well, I want the smallest one to be this size and I want the largest one to be this size. And then you can do the scaling if you will. And the system, the computer helps you. I have to tell you, I have yet to be able to be good at computer assisted design, but I work with people that are just, they blow your mind away. You’ll say something about this idea you have, and they’ll walk in and say, how about looking at this on my tablet used to be a desk size computer. Now it’s on a tablet if you will. So we’ve gotten really good and powerful tools. Testing has matured dramatically. We can’t use the person as the experiment here, and you’ve gotta be able to do a lot of simulation testing. A lot of those kinds of things, which were very hard to do in the past now because of the computing power we have, we’re able to make simulators that run an implant for 50 million, 20 million to look for the endurance. How’s it behaving all those kinds of things. And you can do a lot of things simultaneously. So between CAD simulation and all those things, it’s a far cry from what it was many years ago, when you had to build a prototype and try to test it in some way in a laboratory. And then honestly, in those days, once we thought we had it pretty close, we’d start using it. And it would be used in patients that needed it the most so that the risk reward was there. Now we can do a lot more and we can do it much more quickly. We talked about earlier about the length of time that it takes to do a design when everything works well, 18 months is not out of the question sometimes because of the regulatory overhead that we have. It takes longer than that. But in years past, it could take five years, seven, eight years, and then you weren’t anywhere near as sure about what the outcome was going to be. As I think we are now, they’re less small steps, James Di Virgilio (24:01): Words of wisdom. So here you are decades of experience. I want you to imagine going back in time and having a conversation with your 20 something self, what are two things you would tell yourself back then? Here’s what I want you to anchor to. As you go forward and you have this career doing all these things, remember these two things, Gary Miller (24:20): Be sure to listen and to watch what’s going on. That would be number one for me. And number two would be, I know you’re going to be asked to learn a lot of things that you don’t think you’re going to need to learn. And all I can tell you is I’ve used almost everything that I was taught, except for super higher math. I’ve never liked partial differential equations, and I’ve never had to use them, but I’d mentioned the tools in the toolbox to you earlier. I would tell a person earlier in their career, learn as much as you can keep learning it, keep learning new things, because you’ll never know when you might need to use it. And I could cite examples over and over again of things. I never thought I would be in business. That engineering economics class looked like a waste of time to me. And it’s helped me those on the finance side that say, I still don’t know how to read a balance sheet. What can I tell you, James? But at least I know what I don’t know. And sometimes you need to know what you don’t know. James Di Virgilio (25:22): There’s a lot of wisdom there, especially if you look at being a lifelong learner, having no idea where your life will take you. And then as you mentioned, maybe one of the most important things that I hope listeners pull from. This is what we’ve talked about. Indirectly sometimes directly about this concept of communication language, if you will, and if you’ve traveled at all, you can relate to what it’s like to drop yourself. I went to Asia many years back and you drop in the middle of China or Japan, and no one speaks a word of your language and you don’t speak a word of their language and you both could be brilliant people. And you’re reduced to hand signals, right? And as you mentioned, you want to go from hand signals to fluency in whatever language you have, and you have no idea what language is you’ll pick up throughout your time, whether yours is a mixture of engineering and finance and classes you’ve taken or life experiences you have and how they will cross over down the road. That’s very wise. Gary Miller (26:13): Yeah. I have examples of that in my own life and career. What I love to tell traveling in Spain, I speak minimal Spanish. And at the time I spoke absolutely no Spanish and went to dinner with one of those creative orthopedic surgeons like I was telling you about. And both of us were so frustrated trying to speak through the one person at the table who spoke English and Spanish. And after about 10 minutes, we both had our pens out and you’re going to laugh at me, but we kept moving the glasses and the plates out of the way. And we started drawing on the tablecloth. And so the visual became our medium for communication. And you were teasing me about cemented hips there earlier. We went through his idea of a hip design on that tablecloth and two napkins, as I recall, and we got to the end and we understood what each of us was trying to say. And it came to a pretty nice solution in design that we were able to move forward on. The only embarrassing thing was in this very nice restaurant in Spain, we had to have them take the tablecloth and the napkins off the table and wrap them up and give them to us because it was before cell phones and the only way to transport all this work we had done for two and a half hours at a classic Spanish dinner was to take the table with us. So it’s a fond memory. Obviously for me, I bet a wonderful group of people all over the world. And it comes down yes to hand signals and drawing, drawing. The visual is really without language usually. James Di Virgilio (27:45): And that’s one of the greatest things about doing this podcast, talking with you today is that it’s people, it’s people like you. If you’re listening and it’s people like Gary, it’s people that have ideas and get together with other people that have ideas and those ideas become a reality, right? The things you’ve created, those were humans, creating the ideas and putting them into play. It wasn’t some magical process. It didn’t happen on its own. What you’ve learned what’s in your brain is valuable. Working with others valuable. One of my favorite economic examples is Milton Friedman. You can find this on the internet does like a two minute video on the pencil, the humble pencil, but the pencil comes from so many different places all over the world, which is what allows it to be so cheap nowadays. Right? But at one point in time, it wasn’t so cheap, even just getting led was difficult. And we’ve talked a lot about a lot of these things today. I always find it very encouraging when we’re talking to someone who’s created as many things as you have to hear that it really does come back to what do you know, what do other people know? How can you get together, work together, find solutions to problems that exist. It’s been absolutely great to have you. My guest today, Gary Miller, the co founder of Exactech, also a man of many other things. We can’t just label you as that. And also on the board for the Cade Museum. I would remiss, if I didn’t say that. So thank you for all of your support and also for your time today, we certainly loved having you on Radio Cade. Gary Miller (28:55): Well, thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure. James Di Virgilio (28:58): For Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio. Outro (29:01): Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists, Jacob Lawson.

How do you measure the performance of people whose achievements are hard to measure? Building on the work of Harold Fethe, Jeff Lyons founded MindSolve, a company that developed a technology which made employee evaluations more accurate and more reliable. The company did well and was sold, and Jeff made the challenging transition from founder to employee. A self-described “nerd,” Jeff as a kid used to secretly reprogram Tandy computers at the Radio Shack in the Jacksonville mall. He said “not a lot of planning was involved” in his career, “it was more “just being open to stuff and people who say, ‘come solve this problem for me.” *This episode was originally released on August 14, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles (00:38): I’m going to call HR if you work for any size company, that sentence has the appeal of I’m going to tell your mom, but it turns out HR has a fun, sexy side. I’m your host, Richard Miles and today we will be talking about how much fun it is with Jeff Lyons, founder of a company called MindSolve and currently the Senior Vice President of Global Professional Services at Sum Total, welcome to the show, Jeff. Jeff Lyons (01:00): Thanks, Richard. Excited to be here. Richard Miles (01:02): So Jeff, when I look up fun and sexy in the dictionary, there’s a picture of you, right? Jeff Lyons (01:05): Definitely. And HR as well. Richard Miles (01:08): I also forgot to mention actually the pinnacle of your professional career has been serving as a board member on the Cade Museum, right? It’s pretty much downhill from here. Jeff Lyons (01:16): Yes, thank you. Richard Miles (01:17): And normally we’re talking about topics that are unfamiliar to a lot of people, advanced medical technologies, engineering marvels, that sort of stuff. Today, we’ll be talking about something that actually most people understand pretty well, performance evaluations, training skills management, but let’s talk about first of all, how those things in an organization can be a problem or at least what was the problem you saw in organizational process and what was the solution that you came up with? Jeff Lyons (01:43): So the first thing I should say is that the core technology that MindSolve took to market was not something that I came up with or, or that the folks at MindSolve really came up with. It was the brainchild of a guy named Harold Fethy who ran the HR function at a pharmaceutical research firm in Palo Alto. And so what was interesting was the problem, there was a unique, because he’s trying to do performance assessment with a company full of PhDs that are going to argue with any kind of measurement model or metric or calculation you can put in front of them. Richard Miles (02:12): What year are we talking about Jeff roughly? Jeff Lyons (02:14): This was 95, 96. Um, so sort of just prior to the founding of MindSolve, and so it was an idea that Harold had, and then we help develop the technology and then licensed to take that to market. Richard Miles (02:25): So what is the problem in principle that you were trying to solve? Jeff Lyons (02:29): So the main problem is how do we evaluate employee performance in a way that’s relevant and in a way that has a lot of quality in the data where you can make solid decisions on it, but in a way that’s also easy. Performance appraisal, as you said, everybody’s familiar with it, universally, everybody hates it. It doesn’t matter what you do. You’re never the popular guy walking into the building when it’s performance, appraisal time. But I think we actually did come up with a way to make it pretty sexy and pretty easy and at Aliza because they had a very high bar for data quality and for a robust measurement metric behind everything that was challenging to do in a way that was fun and easy. And Harold had an idea of doing a visual ranking. And I hope talking with my hands on the podcast that comes through, you could describe this to our listeners, but a way of doing just a very simple drag and drop stack ranking on a screen and took Aliza from a process that had very high data quality and was well-respected, but was miserable and onerous and people would do over the weekend with a case of beer and complain about it to something that people were finishing very quickly on time. Not only felt good about the validity, but it was easy to do, and that helped also make it well received. And so that translated very well to a broader audience, that wasn’t a company full of PhDs. And that’s what helped grow the company. Richard Miles (03:45): Instead of a long series of questions, for instance, like, is this employee good at X, Y, and Z, it would be more of a graphical interface or? Jeff Lyons (03:53): Exactly. So what else it was coming from was an idea called paired comparison, which has a lot of data validity. And you build up a data model by comparing A to B and then B to C and then C to A, and kind of making these one by one paired comparisons. And so the psychometrics behind that are great, but people are pretty skeptical and it’s a hugely painful exercise. Normal performance appraisal looks at every employee one at a time. And you just do like a one to five ranking on a bunch of questions and people try to make it better by asking more questions. And there’s a lot of counterintuitive stuff. You get better data up until about eight or nine factors or questions after that, your data quality drops way, way off. The more questions you ask because people get tired of it and they just start Christmas treeing. So this was a way, instead of doing each employee one at a time, we would take your whole team, put them on screen and say, let’s talk about communication skill, put your best communicator at the top, worst communicater at the bottom, kind of rank people in there. And then we’ll look at decision making and self management. And we ended up with about five criteria for most employees. And I think we added two or three extra for managers. So it was very simple, very fast, but we did a lot of work to look at the data quality and we ended up with very, very good decision quality coming out of the exercise. Richard Miles (05:05): That’s fascinating. I wish they had had that when I was in the federal government, which is probably the worst possible example for performance evaluations. But I remember in the army, they had a problem with the officer evaluations and that there were really only two types of officer evaluations. One, your the next Dwight D. Eisenhower and you should be promoted immediately. And the other one is you’re basically a trader to your country and you should be taken out shot. There’s nothing in between. And then the way the army saw that problem is it sounds like something similar. What they started doing is they started putting, I think they called it a diamond and it was after you’d gone through all this verbiage of how wonderful this person was. You were forced to say, well, this person is among the top 5% of officers I’ve ever commanded and so on. And the second and third tier, but then they would add a reality check and that you could then check what your average was. So you kind of knew that this raider was full of it because he gave everybody top diamond or whatever. It’s something like that. Is this something similar in principle to where you’re sort of forcing an accountability so that you can’t just go on and on about somebody’s qualities without comparing them to something? That that kind of it in principle? Jeff Lyons (06:10): You’ve hit on a lot of really, really dense stuff. There’s a lot of psychometrics wrapped up in what you just said. So the first is, yeah, if you evaluate people on a 10 point scale, you might have one person who rates his employees, all eights, nines, and tens, and then you have another person, especially in a room full of PhDs. Who’s just much more critical. Nobody’s perfect. And he rates all his employees five, six, seven, right? So the best guys getting a seven versus the best guy getting a nine. And when you want to make a decision across a broad organization, that’s not really fair. So the first thing that we did was we had to normalize that data. So, you essentially come up with a percentile. So what’s my number one compared to your number one. And we were doing multi-raider assessments. So it wasn’t just a manager evaluation.There were peer evaluations, direct reports would evaluate managers. And so you ended up with a lot of different perspectives about a single person’s performance and backing up for a second. When we took the data, we worked with a couple of really great people on the data model. And one of them, they had the advantage of being in Palo Alto is one of Harold’s close friends is a guy named Brad Ephron who was head of Stanford statistics department at the time, and a MacArthur fellow studying small datasets statistics, which is exactly what we had, right? So we’ve got not classic statistics, but five or six or seven ratings about an individual from a lot of different people. So he worked with us to say first normalize the data average that, and what we found was the absolute rating matters, right? A 3 out of 10 is not as good as a 9 out of 10, but the relative does as well. And what, having multiple people on screen at the same time does use your thinking, not just about what is decision making, but you’re thinking, how does Richard make decisions? And I can benchmark that against how does Jeff make decisions? And it helps me as a evaluator ground, something in reality and make better decisions. And there’s also an element of fairness to it. And then you mentioned kind of this idea that we would call like a forced distribution. Like if everybody fits into a bell curve, you can’t have all tens, you can’t have all ones. Where we ended up after lots of trial and error and back and forth and working with people is that it would be invalid to look at a large group of folks and not make decisions about who you’re starting five are, and who’s going to be cut from the team, right? You’ve got to be able to make those hard decisions in any organization. And it’s difficult because people say, well, we only hire A’s, everybody’s an A, but then you can’t get anything done if you’re not able to make those decisions, but we would not force a ranking. You could tie people, you didn’t necessarily have to fit percentages into those sections of the diamond, but you also couldn’t be flat. And what we would do is provide reports back to show where there wasn’t good differentiation in the ratings and go ask the question and you will get situations where we put our starting five all with this manager. So they’re all going to get high ratings or vice versa, but it was pretty rare. And you could look at the data and at least ask the question of, are we making a good, valid decision? Richard Miles (08:57): So you started out trying to solve the problem, or at least make more efficient performance evaluations, but then the company MindSolve that you originally founded, started doing other things, right? Like skills training and other types of management process. Can you describe, or the evolution from going to the performance evaluations to the other function. Jeff Lyons (09:14): Yeah, absolutely. What got us into more things was that we licensed that technology back from the company we built it for and started selling it to other companies. And what happens, I think this is true of almost any startup situation is if you go in and you help someone solve problems, they turn out to have a lot of problems and are struggled to solve them. And so they end up giving you more work. So if you look in HR, there’s a bunch of different functions. There’s performance, appraisal, there’s compensation, succession planning, learning, and development. And so you do good work here and they say, well, now we want to push that data into our comp process. For example, we use Excel spreadsheets, it’s miserable. We need to automate it. Can you help us automate that and just tie it right in that was the first sort of adjacent space we went into and then kind of worked our way around the wheel of HR. As customers started asking us to do more stuff. So we really grew in a direction dictated by our customers or requested by our customers. Richard Miles (10:07): Is there an optimal size of company that’s sort of like your ideal client for whom this is the most useful? Is it relatively small companies that for them you’re taking a huge burden in terms of HR off of their shoulders, or is this ideal for our company of say a thousand employees or more? Jeff Lyons (10:24): I think there’s a better ROI larger. And we used to talk about, if you’ve got 10 employees, you can kind of sit around a table and do this. Richard Miles (10:31): And rank them one through 10. Jeff Lyons (10:32): Yeah, it’s pretty straight forward, and everybody knows everybody. And the value of automation is greater when there, the data gets so big, you just can’t manage it. Compensation is a great example. People would send Excel spreadsheets out to every manager in the company, pull those back together, copy paste. It was a huge just labor problem. If you only have a few dozen employees, anything about maybe a hundred and fewer, is pretty easy to do, above that it gets very difficult. Richard Miles (10:58): And so some guy or gal spend their entire day just trying to figure out what everyone should get paid. Jeff Lyons (11:02): Yes. Every case that they’re tested around for everybody versus real time, everybody’s kind of in the same data. Richard Miles (11:10): Now, you have had as an entrepreneur being in that field, sort of one of those experiences that is both, I guess, a Mark of success, but also a challenge. And that is a company that you helped found, MindSolve became acquired by another company or sold. And then you became an employee for that company. So you’re making the transition from being the top guy to being a guy who probably has to fix a lot more your own coffee and that sort of stuff, right? So tell us, what’s that like mentally or professionally, how do you make that transition from being the person who started something to being the person who is at work. Jeff Lyons (11:41): I feel like I should lay down on a couch for this part of this session, that you’re, there’s a lot of scar tissue, your brain, Richard Miles (11:47): I just started my clock. I am billing you for this job. Jeff Lyons (11:51): Well, first I’ll correct. You going a bigger organization was nice because then you actually had people who would help with administrative stuff. At a small startup we were making our own coffee, we would draw straws on who got to clean the bathroom. You know, the biggest thing though, was the change in the level of control that you have. That was hard. But I think as we got closer to our acquisition, I was really becoming aware of our limitations, which is a really polished way of saying I had no clue what I was doing. And so we had kind of maxed out what we could do with the organization. We needed more funding. We had bootstrapped the organization, meaning just grown out of revenue. We weren’t burning through a ton of VC money, but we also a couple of guys straight out of college who had no idea about enterprise software. And so we really didn’t know how to sell well. And we had kind of maxed out the organic growth model. So I was actually very excited about talking to people who I thought knew how to run an air quotes, real company. There were definitely a lot of frustrations. Things move so much slower. I was not very politically astute at MindSolve our, our decision making model was yell at each other until somebody gave up and that did not serve me well as part of a bigger organization. And then I came to find out that, Richard Miles (12:58): So you’re really a consultant is what you’re telling me. You just tell other people to yell at you. And it sounds like a title of a great book or, you know, yell until you win right? Jeff Lyons (13:06): It’s probably a best seller, but it’s not a very good model. I’ve gotten definitely better models since then. But no, I think we definitely learned a lot post acquisition about the corporate world, how to sell to that world. Surprisingly, there were a lot of things we lucked into doing better at MindSolve. Then we’re done at the big publicly traded company that we went into. And we found that after a few years, that company was acquired by a private equity firm who was extremely focused on operational efficiency. And we looked at massive changes to how we approached management. So that was a big learning curve. Richard Miles (13:39): One thing that a lot of people talk about is AI, artificial intelligence and it’s going to take everyone’s job, right? Is this a sector loosely described as you, you weren’t consultants, but basically you are helping businesses do their business better, and by making the HR process across the board more efficient, is this something that you could write into a code, right? Where basically you’ve now got an automated way to swart and judge employees and give them training and so on. So is this in any way going to be, or is it already being affected by AI? Jeff Lyons (14:10): It is, at some total and it’s Skillsoft we have AI built into our code now and I think it’s an amazing tool. I think it can help you, but I don’t see it really replacing management judgment strategy, things like that. A good example is we use AI to look at, what do I know about you? What do I know about folks who are similar? And we can recommend, for example, developmental training, that’s better for you than if you just did a random search and found 200 courses on management communication. We’ll find the one that’s most relevant to you, almost like an Amazon matching, but there’s limits to that. As you know, you go into Amazon and you’ve bought a bathtub. Amazon thinks you want to buy five more bathtubs in the next week. It makes no sense, right? So there are those kinds limitations. Richard Miles (14:52): I stop at three bathtubs. I never buy that forth bathtub.So we’re not at a point where you ask Alexa what the weather is and she says, Jeff you’re fired, right? We’re not there yet right? Jeff Lyons (15:02): I don’t think so. And I think there’s cultural hurdles to that as well. People want a human safety net on that stuff. I think the technology can get you closer to a small set of decisions with good data to help you make a decision. But I think unless it’s just sort of a repeatable cookie cutter, kind of a problem, I don’t see AI solving a what’s best for the company. Richard Miles (15:23): And it seems to be the consensus on AI is that it will take away some jobs, but it really just helps people do their existing job better because it cuts out some of that mundane data gathering, I guess, or sorting. Right? Jeff Lyons (15:34): You know, I think people never ask the question of what new jobs is AI going to create. Right. And people think, Oh, well it’s just coding AI. It’s not that at all. What we saw with our technology is HR is spending 90% of their time on tactical logistical, moving data around not really adding value stuff. And when we can automate that, it frees up their time to do interesting things right? Drive the strategy of the business, which then creates more work and more growth and all of that. We never really downsized HR because we automated part of what they did. We freed up their time to add more value, to do more things. Richard Miles (16:06): So Jeff, now we sort of shift to the best part of the show and the one most likely to get subpoenaed in a few years. And that is what were you like as a kid, where you smart, curious, are you just someone whose parents drop them off at the mall as fast as they could, you know? And your a Jacksonville boy as well, so tell us a little bit about growing up in Jacksonville. What were you like? What did you do? That sort of thing? Jeff Lyons (16:25): I was a nerd that kind of sums up most of it. Richard Miles (16:28): It’s amazing how many Radio Cade guests describe themselves as nerds, it’s gotta be over 90%. So we’re doing something wrong here. I don’t know. Jeff Lyons (16:33): You’re definitely hiring to a profile. Look that just cuts out about 20 minutes of description right? Um, I was not at all athletic, I was super uncoordinated. I liked to do a lot of different creative stuff, all the normal nerd things in terms of reading and movies and watching Star Trek and I never really got big into the Star Trek versus Star Wars debate. I was more of, we can like everybody, Richard Miles (16:58): We can all get along here, we can. Jeff Lyons (17:00): Yeah, exactly, always did well in school to spite myself. I never applied myself at all until I got to college. Richard Miles (17:07): So you’re a little bit younger than I am. What was the cutting edge technology when you were say in ninth grade, what was the thing that everyone was talking about? Can you remember, or that you just had to have. Jeff Lyons (17:17): This is horrible. What we used to do was go to the Radio Shack in the mall and they would have their Tandy computer sitting out there and you could walk up and immediately just interrupt it and write little basic programs to scroll words at random, across the screen and do stupid stuff like that. Richard Miles (17:30): So Radio Shack, Tandy computers, maybe you are as old as I am. You just look, younger. Jeff Lyons (17:36): Keyboard built right into the monitor. You know, that kind of thing. I mean, that was just when Atari was coming out and Kaliko Vision and, and television and all that stuff. So that was kind of the hot stuff we wanted with just the home video games. We would spend all our time at the mall, arcade, Richard Miles (17:52): Re-programming. Okay. Was there a certain point in your childhood or later in high school where the idea of going into business of some sort of, kind of entrepreneur appealed to you? Or did you think about it? Did you have your own business? Did you know lawn business or whatever in high school, or did that come later? Jeff Lyons (18:07): I always worked. I was cutting yards when I was young. I worked through high school at a shoe store. That’s a nice embarrassing podcast we can save for later time. But I was never, I need to go start a business or dream of being an entrepreneur. It was more, I needed money. Richard Miles (18:22): So it’s a fine motivator. It works for a lot of people. Jeff Lyons (18:27): It went from, you know, wanting to be able to play video games at the mall to wanting to buy beer. There are always staples of life that I needed. No, it was more about that. And I think that’s one thing that served me well, it’s always had a decent work ethic. I was never afraid of working late. Richard Miles (18:41): Now you come from a family of engineers. Correct? Your father is a civil engineer. Right? And you have a couple of siblings that are engineers? Jeff Lyons (18:47): I have an older brother who yeah designs subdivisions. Richard Miles (18:51): Alright. But your degree was in, what? Was it software engineering? Jeff Lyons (18:55): No, my degree was in mechanical engineering. So back to your question of wanting to start a business, now, I thought I’d go into engineering and I used that approximately zero days after graduation. Richard Miles (19:07): So you graduate your mechanical engineering degree and what did you do? Jeff Lyons (19:09): Well, I was working part time for some folks in Gainesville doing software development. That’s what got me into software and then when, Richard Miles (19:15): Again, what year are we talking about here? Jeff Lyons (19:17): I started working with them in 90 and I graduated in 94. Richard Miles (19:22): So software was still kind of in its infancy in terms of, Jeff Lyons (19:25): Very much so.Yeah. I mean, we were writing really rudimentary code, but also doing really neat stuff. We doing three dimensional models and walkthroughs of, of hotel ballrooms, really, really neat stuff. And when I graduated, we had been developing some software that we decided to take to market. So that was kind of the first startup pre MindSolve, which was a big failure, but fun. And so I had this offer to come be employee number two, working out of a defunct dentist office in Gainesville. And my other offer was a company that was in the fortune one at the time. And so, uh, those were the two ends of the bell curve. And I said, well, I’ll go give this a shot. And if it doesn’t work out after a year, I can go back to being an engineer. And I did that these little one year, i’ll just give it one more year for quite a while and that led to today, basically. Yeah, so that was the last time I got a job was straight out of college. Richard Miles (20:17): Okay. Well, I hope you’ve worked on your resume recently. Jeff Lyons (20:21): Yeah. There was not a lot of planning involved or this was not a, this is what I want to do with my life. There was a lot of being open to stuff and working really hard and people going, Hey, come solve this problem for me. Richard Miles (20:31): Well, so that’s kind of a nice segue into my next question is asking you your words of wisdom and maybe you don’t have any words of wisdom, Jeff, I don’t know, but most people do or they make it up on the spot, but let’s say you magically encounter that the 22 year old version of Jeff Lyons, probably in the arcade at the video games, what would you say? What would you tell him aside from always wipe off the fingerprints, what would you say to that person? Jeff Lyons (20:53): You know, it’s really funny, I’m really of two minds of it because I think I’ve had a really fun life. I think it’s been really rewarding and I’ve liked the journey, but there’s a big part of me saying, don’t do what I did. I mean, we made like every mistake you can make. I was very lucky to have great mentors and advisors early on, right? Even though one of my co-founders, Dan and I were sort of straight out of college. Our third co-founder was a guy who had been an entrepreneur for a long time, was able to give us great advice was a very calming influence on, on a couple idiots, straight out of school. So I did have that, but I still think, just get more advice of people who had done it. There was no real startup community. And in Gainesville, um, as you said, software and the technology, Richard Miles (21:32): There wasn’t a startup community until like 2006 or 2007? You waited a long while. Jeff Lyons (21:35): This was before the.com boom. I mean, there was no model. And so we were just kinda making it up as we went along and our story is great and it sounds fun and everything until you realize that we had a competitor of similar size that we had better technology, but they knew how to sell things and were connected and invested. Right? And that company later sold to SAP for $4 billion. So I probably would have preferred to run that company. Um, all things being equal so, Richard Miles (22:05): Well then you wouldn’t be in a booth with me, it’d be on your private jet somewhere. So lets just be honest here right. Jeff Lyons (22:10): So we probably tried to do things too much on a shoe string. I think being well-funded especially now is even more important. So that’s a pretty easy lesson to share is don’t be afraid to give up a little bit of control to people. You’d benefit from them having a little bit of control and who can bring a lot of funding and not suffocate the business. Richard Miles (22:28): Well, it’s interesting because you hear a lot from other people saying, give up control, any control at your peril and don’t take any money because they’ll take over and so on. But it’s interesting counterpoint that that may limit a lot of what you can actually do. You don’t have the resources. Jeff Lyons (22:43): Yeah. Very much. And I’ve seen the downside of that as well. The other thing I’d say is more on a personal level versus a professional for me coming out of engineering school and just being a very technical oriented type of a person we joked around before about kind of the communication style and the debate style that decisions got made. But in reality, it took me about 10 years to realize that other people have feelings and that most people don’t enjoy vigorous debate as much as I do. And that I think held me back from being an effective leader for a long time. So to somebody who can recognize that handicap in themselves, paying more attention to the people side versus the technical side will serve you very well. Richard Miles (23:25): Well, Jeff, my invoice for counseling is already hit probably about a thousand dollars here. So I’m going to have to wrap this up, but Jeff Lyons author of the soon to be written book yell until you get what you want. Jeff, thanks very much for coming on to Radio Cade, wish you all the best in your professional career. And I look forward to having you back on the show. Jeff Lyons (23:43): Richard, it was a lot of fun. Thank you. Richard Miles (23:45): I’m Richard Miles. Outro (23:46): Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and vendor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song featuring violinist, Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Nina Kraus, a professor of communication sciences, neurobiology, and physiology at Northwestern University in Chicago, has done a lot of research on the effect of playing music on processing sound, learning, and brain development. She explains the “musician’s advantage,” which includes better reading skills, and how music training can be a tool to improve the performance of students from low socio-economic backgrounds. *This episode was originally released on June 10, 2020.* Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles (00:39): The sound of music, not just a movie about seeing Austrians, but also a fertile field of research, specifically the effect of playing music on processing sound, learning, and brain development. I’m your host Richard Miles. Today my guest is Nina Kraus, a professor of communication, sciences, neurobiology, and physiology at Northwestern University in Chicago. Welcome to Radio Cade, Nina. Nina Kraus (01:02): I’m so glad to be here. Richard Miles (01:03): So Nina, you’re one of those difficult guests that you have done so much, and we could talk a lot, but then this would not be a 30 minute podcast, it would be like a 30 hour podcast, but I have heard you speak before, and I know you were actually quite good about summarizing your research so I know you’re up to the challenge, but I’d like to start out by focusing on one particular area of your work. You’ve done a lot in sound processing and how the brain processes sound, but why don’t we start with some basic definitions for our listeners. So from a scientific perspective or researchers perspective, what is the relationship or the difference, I guess, between music, noise, and language. What’s the relationship between those three things? Nina Kraus (01:41): What a great starting question. So sound is the common denominator for all the things that you mentioned and sound is a very under-recognized force in our society. It is very, very powerful, and yet we don’t pay very much attention to it because it’s invisible, first of all, like a lot of powerful forces like gravity. So you don’t think about it. And we live in a very visually biased world. And even scientifically there was a National Institute for Vision 13 years before there was one for hearing. And that was the National Institute for Deafness and Communication. We share that with smell and taste, but all of the things that you mentioned, language, and, music, and noise, these are all sounds. And I’m a biologist and I am interested in sound and the brain. And so really the overall umbrella over everything that we study is sound and brain. How do we make sense of sound? How is sound processed in the brain and how does our experience with sound shape how we perceive the world? Richard Miles (02:52): I saw on one of your papers, you have a specific way or methodology that you can actually look at brain as it is interpreting sound, right? Nina Kraus (03:01): Yeah. Let me tell you a little bit about that. Initially, as a biologist, I came into science studying single neurons, actually, single neurons with scalp electrodes and animal models and one of my first experiments was to play sound to an animal while I was recording the brain’s response, the one cell’s response, to that sound. This was a rabbit, a bunny rabbit, and we taught the rabbit that the sound had a meaning that every time the sound happened, he’d get some food. So the same sound, same neuron, but the neurons response to that sound changed. And so we could see firsthand learning, the biology of learning, and that’s something that I’m deeply interested in. My lab, which we call Brain Volts has been looking at how our experience with sound shapes our nervous system, but I was coming from the specificity of recording from individual cells. And so these are signals. These are tangible signals that you can really define, and that felt good. And so the question was, well, how can we get a way of measuring sound processing in the brain in humans when we can’t go sticking needles into individual cells? You know, there are many ways of recording the brain’s response to sound with scalp electrodes. And of course, as I’m talking to you, now, the nerves in your brain that respond to sound are producing electricity. And so with the scalp electrodes, we can pick up that electricity and that’s been done for a long, long time, but most of the measures that we can obtain from the scalp are rather blunt with respect to what I’m interested in, which is the different ingredients of sound. So sound consists, again let me make a visual object comparison. So with vision, everybody knows that a given object has a shape, a size, a color, a texture, that’s all very obvious, but people don’t realize, first of all, that there is sound and secondly, that sound also consists of ingredients like pitch, how high or low a tambour, a violin and a tuba sound different when they’re playing the same note, that’s tambour. The harmonics that differentiate one speech sound from another. There’s phase that tells us where objects are in space, based on the time of arrival of the sound to your two ears. And there’s a huge timing. So the auditory system is our fastest sense, even though light is faster than sound processing sound happens on the order of microseconds because there’s so much timing information in sound. That’s how sound works, it’s fleeting. And so, what I was interested, what I am interested in is how do we figure out how the brain makes sense of these different ingredients? And we figured out a way of doing this because most of the methods that were available to us in the past, you could just see is the response large, is the response fast to sound, but I want to know how does your brain respond specifically to pitch and timing and tambour and phase all these different ingredients. And so one of the metaphors that I like to use is a mixing board. So if you think about the faders on a mixing board and you think of all the different ingredients and sound, when they are transduced into the signals of the brain, which is electricity, it doesn’t work like a volume knob. People, even musicians, are not good at processing all the sounds like a volume knob. They have specific strengths and weaknesses like the faders on a mixing board and I wanted a biological approach that would be able to look at that, would be very, very precise, and not only be able to tell us well, what is the effect of playing a musical instrument for many years? What is the effect of speaking another language, but not only looking at these group differences, but what about individuals? I mean, my auditory brain is different from your auditory brain, we’re all individuals. And so would it be possible to actually have a physiologic response that reflected these ingredients, A-of-all, and B-of-all would not only reflect what happens with experience in groups of people, but even on an individual basis. And we have really figured this out. So this is a response called the ‘frequency following response’ the FFR, which we have adapted to our use and we are able to use very complex, sounds like speech and music and analyze the responses in a way to see how an individual processes these different ingredients. And we’ve spent a lot of time on the methodology. So we have two tutorials on the frequency following response, which really speaks about these responses in a lot of detail. We have a number of patents on what we’ve discovered in terms of how to measure these responses. So this is really something that has kept us busy. So on the one hand, it was really a quest to search for a biological approach, which I’m really happy with now. And then it is a matter of applying that biological approach. Partly it was synergistic because we wanted to see, well, is this approach actually yielding the kind of information we want through research. And so we’ve done a lot of research and now we can really have confidence that a person’s response to sound really does reflect how their brain processes the different ingredients, how it might’ve been affected by the songs we sing, the languages we speak, and even your brain health, because making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs that we ask our brains to do. So you can imagine that if you get hit in the head, it will disrupt this very, very fine microsecond level processing, which is one of the areas that we’re interested in looking at is, is what happens with head injury, especially with concussion, sports induced concussion. And so again, we can do that as well. Richard Miles (08:56): So on your website, I think you have this great graphical representation of the frequency following response, right? Where you will play a snippet of almost anything, but let’s say a piece of music and in the brain of the person listening to it, you have almost a mirror image right, of that same frequency. And you can see differences in the ability of the person to process what they’re hearing. And so you found, and again, I may have this wrong, you found that musicians had several advantages in the way that you will play for them something say Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and a musician will hear it differently than when you say musician, it’s someone who actually plays an instrument, right? Not just a music appreciator, or someone who plays an instrument. Those people process the sound differently than those people who are not trained in playing music. Is that correct? Nina Kraus (09:55): That’s exactly right. Because what is so beautiful about this biological approach is that the response we get from the brain, the electricity actually physically resembles the sound that was used to evoke it. This hardly ever happens in biological systems. I mean, usually you’re looking at something very abstract, like lipid levels, cholesterol levels, to give you some index of cardiovascular health. Then, to actually be able to say, Oh, well, people process sounds in a way that we can actually see with a certain transparency. So the transparency is, as you said, is such that we play a sound wave and you can see the sound wave and you can then deliver that sound, wave to a person and pick up the electricity that the sound wave generates. And then, you know, we’re all familiar with taking a sound wave and feeding it through a microphone, and then you can play it through a speaker. And then the same way, you can take an electrical response that you have recorded from the brain, it’s just an electrical response, and you can deliver that to a speaker and play it so we can both see and hear a person’s response to sound. And yes, in fact, we can see the people who regularly play an instrument, so I’m not talking about professional musicians. I’m just talking about people who regularly play a musical instrument, you know, as little as half an hour, twice a week on a regular basis. And one of the things that we’ve been able to find is that there really is a neural signature for the musician. So remember I said, that sound consisted of these ingredients like pitch and timing and tambour. And what we see as the musician strength is a strengthening of the harmonics in sound and of various timing ingredients. And it turns out that both the harmonics and the timing are not only important in music, but they also overlap with what you need for language. So you can imagine how if you are doing an activity that is strengthening your brain’s response to the harmonics, which not only are important for playing a musical instrument, the harmonics are what distinguish B’s and P’s, and D’s, and G’s from each other. So these are the same signals. They’re the same ingredients. They’re these beautiful signals outside the head and inside the head that we can see, how does experience shape how we perceive the world. So the musician signature really has a strengthening of harmonics and timing, which it turns out transfers to language abilities and language abilities, including things like reading and being able to hear speech in a noisy place like a classroom, being able to figure out what’s going on in a complex soundscape. So these are advantages that seem to come along with the brains increased stability, strengthened ability to process these particular ingredients of harmonics and timing and what we call FM sweeps, which are basically the simplest FM suites. It’s a change of frequency over time. It’s like a cat call, right? It’s a sweep up and down. And it turns out that speech sounds have very, very, very fast FM sweeps that distinguishes one consonant from another, that happened in a very, very short period of time. And so the brain’s ability to process these FM sweeps is something that we see as a strength in musicians, and is very much an important ingredient in language. Richard Miles (13:32): I find all of this fascinating Nina. I remember the one example that you gave you tested musician’s ability to, as you said, pick out a particular sound in a crowded room, and you compare that to non-musicians and that the musicians had this definitive ability to recognize a sound pattern and all that. And then of course, different types of syllables or consonant, they also had that ability. The only time I can ever do this, I’m not a musician is if we’re at a party, I can hear Phoebe’s voice in a crowded room, and then she said, well, yes, that’s because research has found that men interpret women’s voices like music. So finally, I have a researcher. You tell me, is that true or not? Nina Kraus (14:08): Well, I would say that you have had a lot of experience with Phoebe’s voice and so you’re sonic brain is tuned to that voice. And we say this, when, you know, you pick up the phone, your son calls you and you say, “Oh, it’s so good to hear the sound of your voice”, the years of the sound to meaning, sound to emotion connections that you’ve made with that voice even before you hear the particular words, you have this very strong connection to what you’ve learned. And so I think that’s why you can hear Phoebe so well. Richard Miles (14:41): Let’s talk some more about work that you have done, very interesting work, with something called The Harmony Project in Los Angeles. This is something, I think in 2014 was the research, and essentially you worked with an organization in Los Angeles, it was giving music lessons, I think mostly stringed instruments, right? They’re giving them lessons for a substantial amount of time and then you started tracking them doing assessments to see if there were other advantages, right, that translated not just the ability to play a given instrument, but also the ability to do other cognitive skills. Tell us a little bit more about that. Nina Kraus (15:14): So, we’re really fortunate as scientists, and also if you read about Brain Volts and what we care about in our lab. We really are interested in sound in the world and we’re less interested in creating an experiment in the lab where people come in and they are given a certain amount of training with sound. We’re really interested in what is the impact of playing a musical instrument in actual music programs that live in the world? Also, one of the questions that one often asks is, well, is it that the brains strengthened response in musicians is just something they were born with so that if you have a strength in a certain domain, you might be encouraged to pursue that activity. A way of, of trying to understand what the effect of experiences is to do a so-called longitudinal study. Let me tell you the long in longitudinal is no joke, because that means tracking the same individuals year after year after year. So, we had the opportunity to do this in Los Angeles in the gang reduction zones of LA. And also we had a companion project at the same time in the Chicago Public Schools, where we basically had the same experimental design, which consisted of you take two groups of people and you match them at the beginning of training, or before training has started, and you match them on age and sex and reading scores and IQ and everything that you can think of, and then one group gets music and another group gets something else and you track them over time. So you track them year after year. And we were able to do this in LA with elementary school kids, second, third, and fourth graders. So we did this over three years and then the project in Chicago was adolescents also in low income areas. We’ve tracked the adolescents from freshman year until they graduated as seniors. And what was important is that the individuals in the different groups were in the same classroom, same teachers, same socioeconomic areas. And we could see, well, what happens if one group gets music and another group gets something else? So what we were able to find was, first of all, we were very interested in, well, we already knew from cross sectional studies across the, about this musician signature that I told you about that musicians had strengthened responses to FM sweeps, to harmonics, to timing in speech. The musicians had these stronger responses, but we wanted to know, well, is this something that develops over time? And in both studies after a year of regular music making in LA, these were after-school programs five times a week. If you also include Saturday and in the Chicago public schools, it was actually within the school day so that they had an hour every day of music, just like you had an hour of English and Math and History. We’d measure sound processing in the brain using our biological approach at the beginning of the year. And then at again at the end of the year, and after a year in both studies, we found no change in the brain’s response to sound. And that’s what the data showed but we kept going. And so in both of the studies, what we found was that it takes a while to change the brain. And that’s a good thing. If your brain was changing in a fundamental way, every second, you’d be really confused, but you speak a certain language that has certain sound ingredients after a while. And it’s really after years of speaking of particular language, your brain automatically changes and changes in a way fundamental or your default experience of the world. I mean, even if you’re asleep and I’m measuring your brain’s response to sound, you will have this heightened response to certain sound ingredients, because it has just become a fundamental way of how you perceive the world. But this takes, while it really did take two years to see these changes. And at the same time, of course, we were interested well, are these kids doing better in school in various ways, in terms of literacy, for example, and being able to hear speech and noise. And in fact, again, we were able to, to track the changes in the brain with these gains in literacy, and in being able to hear, for example, speech in noise, Richard Miles (19:52): So Nina, it’s fairly common observation that the younger you are the easier it seems to do things like learn languages, foreign language, play instruments, and so on. Is there anything in your research or other people’s research that indicates are there definitive windows of neuroplasticity past which it’s not really worth it or the returns are so diminishing that every 10 hours of effort you put into it is really not going to get you much. Do you find that there’s a cutoff? Does it happen in elementary school or middle school? Or can you go on up through your twenties and still reasonably hope to take up an instrument or learn a foreign language and accomplish a very high degree of proficiency with it. Nina Kraus (20:28): Great question, the answer is no, there is no limit. Certainly the way that a young brain learns is different from an older brain, but we continue to learn until the day we die. And in fact, there’ve been very beautiful experiments in auditory learning in animal models where you can very easily and in a very precise way, regulate an animal’s experience at different ages and see how their brain responds to learning an auditory task. And there have been experiments showing that certainly animals will learn differently when they’re younger and when they’re older, but they will continue to learn until the end of their lives. And this is born out in human studies as well, specifically with music. So in our own experience, in the harmony project, the kids were elementary school kids, in high school, the kids just began their music instruction as freshmen. So what was kind of a tragedy for these kids? The fact that they really had had no music instruction of any kind before they were freshmen in high school, turned out to be from a scientific standpoint, very important, because we could see that certainly the kids who began their music training as adolescents had the same kinds of brain changes that we saw in the younger kids. Moreover, the number of labs have looked at learning in older people. And even if you’ve never played a musical instrument, your brain can change and you can continue to learn music, to learn new languages. And we have this very, very dynamic system, and I think we should embrace the differences in the way we learn at different ages, because as we’re older, we bring wisdom with us and we bring an understanding of what we’re doing that is very different from the way a child might approach learning, for example, a musical instrument. But the fact is that the benefits of playing a musical instrument, which are profound, really in terms of memory and attention and emotion, sociability, these are gifts from music that you want to experience throughout your life. Richard Miles (22:41): If we could just stay on that just a little bit more Nina, one of the fascinating things I saw in one of your papers was the connection of musical ability or music training to reading, and that you expected to find obviously, a connection to speaking, cause that’s sort of an auditory sound function, right? But reading, and I didn’t realize the extent to which a solid understanding of how a word sounds, how are phoning sounds is essential to reading a written word. So comment on that, but there’s a second part of my question. Let me put it in right now, what are the other cognitive things that you have found that improve? I mean, is there a link with math, for instance, do you increase math abilities among musicians? Are there any other cognitive things that appear to be improved or beneficial as a result of music training? Nina Kraus (23:24): So your first question is what does sound have to do with reading? And we learned to speak first and what we need to do when we read is we have to associate the sound of the letters with a symbol on the page. And so, we’ve known from decades of research that kids who have difficulty processing sounds have difficulty reading. So there is a very, very strong connection there. Also there’s a part of speech. When you think of music, you know that there’s rhythm in music, right? Rhythm is a part of music, but you don’t necessarily think about rhythm as being a part of speech. But it is. I mean, think of the difference between the word rebel and rebel. It’s the same word, but I have a different rhythm. And even though the rhythm isn’t as regular, we have tremendous rhythmic ability in speaking. So every Martin Luther King day, my husband and I listened to the, I have a dream speech and listening to Dr. King speak, it has this wonderful rhythm and cadence to it. And if I was saying those same words to you, you’d be looking at your watch, you’d be, when is this going to be over? But so much of the communication is rhythmic. If you want to have fun, do some YouTube searches for rhythm and music. And you’ll find there’s a guy who plays drums along with while people are speaking, it really pulls out what is not so inherently obvious. But after awhile you realize, Oh, this is really rhythmic. So this is another thing that gets strengthened. If you make music, you really make abilities get better. And the reason that we know that this is tied to reading is that again, for decades now, people have demonstrated that kids who have difficulty reading have difficulty with rhythm. Rhythm is one part of what gets strengthened with music. And I would say that it’s the rhythm, and it is the tuning, if you will, of important sound ingredients that together help achieve the gains, which is now the second part of your question, which is why do we care? And well we care because we want to know what to pay attention to. And in order to learn, we have to be able to pay attention to sounds. So, for example, my husband’s a real musician. And one day I was trying to learn a dire straits lead on the guitar and he came by and he said, Nina, if you just listen, you would realize that Mark Knopfler is not using his pick on the string each time. He’s not going to Dee Dee Dee Dee. The reason that he’s playing those notes so fast is because he’s actually pulling off the string with the fingers of his left hand, it’s called a pull off. And it has a very special sound to it, that I was deaf to. But now I know what that sounds like. And so when I hear it again, I have learned what to pay attention to. And it’s kind of automatic like, Oh yeah, I know what this is. And so there are so many associations with sound and our ability to pay attention and to then be able to pay attention to other sounds in the world that might be important, like a teacher’s voice or Phoebe’s voice across the room. So that’s one thing. The other is auditory working memory, in order for you to make sense of what I’m saying right now, you need to remember what I just said. So a typical auditory working memory test language is I’ll give you a list of words and then ask you to repeat back only the words that were names of cars that started with M. And so you think, okay, so what did she say? Which ones are cars, which ones start with M. And this is your auditory working memory that is kind of helping you make sense of what you hear constantly. So it’s very, very important. So on the test like this people who are musicians, someone who regularly plays a musical instrument, by the way, singing counts, then across the lifespan, people who are musicians have stronger auditory working memory skills and stronger attention skills, and any teacher will tell you. And one of the reasons this was interesting to me is that teachers will tell me all the time that the kids who play music are the ones who do better in school. Richard Miles (27:33): Nina, you alluded to this earlier, you talked about Brain Volts, which is essentially, you’re looking at ways to take this research that you’re doing or the findings, and basically help others in other fields. And if I understand it correctly, you can use this in addition to research, but also as a diagnostic tool, right? If you find somebody and it appears to be their audio processing capabilities off, that may be an indicator of something else, such as a concussion or maybe dementia or something like that. I’m not entirely sure about that. So I’m waiting for you to correct me, but is that what it is? And then how’s it gone in terms of setting up something to try to commercialize the technology. And this is something we talk on this podcast, a lot, a lot of people like you, researchers have something that they know has a value outside of the research arena, and they want to take that technology to market. And it’s very difficult. So it’s kind of hit or miss. And we know for the genesis of this particular podcast, the museum project was Gatorade, a research project with great success, but isn’t a tiny minority of what happens to typical research. So first of all, correct me, or affirm me that I have that description of your business model, correct. And then how’s it going in terms of going to market? Nina Kraus (28:43): So I think the two areas that we have been focusing on, one is language and literacy. And yes, the idea is to use this biomarker, if you will, as a way to provide additional information about a kid who might be having difficulty in school or is having various problems with language and learning. And the question is, is this coming from the fact that his brain is not processing sounds in a typical way? And to be able to at any age, just deliver sounds and just use some scalp electrodes to get this piece of information is very valuable. And people talk about diagnosis. I wouldn’t say that this would be the only thing that you would look at. Any clinician wants to have an armamentarium of clinical results. You go to your physician and he’s looking at all of your various test results, and hopefully he can put together this constellation of findings and be well-informed. Well, I think at being well-informed, if you have a kid with a learning problem, when a language delay, if it was my kid, I would want to know, is there a bottleneck? Is there a problem here with sound processing? I would also want to know is my kid at risk? So I can envision this as now they have newborn hearing screenings where every child gets a hearing test to make sure that they can actually detect the sounds. I could envision the kind of technology that we’ve developed as being something that would be side by side with that. And you would also be able to see is my child at risk for struggling to learn language or struggling to learn, to read way before he actually begins to struggle in school. Wouldn’t it be great to just know that this is a child who is at risk. And so there are various things that can be done, especially if you are aware of a potential problem early on Richard Miles (30:39): Nina, just to clarify, going back to your analogy of the sound volume knob versus the mixing board the tests are doing now, essentially just measuring the sound knob, right? Can they hear or not? And your test would give the ability to say, well specifically, are there things going on at the auditory processing level that bear watching or concern? Is that? Nina Kraus (30:58): Yeah, I mean the typical hearing test now is really, can you hear, there’s a range of pitches that language consists of, and can you hear very, very quiet sounds and your ears ability to hear what I am measuring more is the brain’s ability to understand what you hear. And so the sounds that we deliver, aren’t very quiet, they’re conversational level. So we already know that they can hear their ears are working fine. They’ve passed the hearing test from an ear perspective, but we want to know now, if I’m speaking conversationally, I know that you can hear me, does your brain process these different ingredients properly or not? And what are the strengths and what are the bottlenecks? And we know that there are certain signatures, and this is again, one of the things that we have patents on is that we know that there is a certain signature that’s associated with a language delay and literacy problems. And so you would want to look for that particular signature in a child that you were wondering about in terms of their current or their future language potential. Richard Miles (32:02): Could you use it to detect mild concussions? For instance, if there is neurological damage and traditional tests, weren’t willing indicating one way or another, is this another tool that you could use to figure out something is wrong here? Nina Kraus (32:14): Absolutely. Because most concussions, unless you have a cerebral bleed, you’re not going to see them on imaging. You need a very sensitive measure and sound processing. The brain does provide that. It’s also noninvasive. It takes 15 minutes to obtain and we have found again and again, we have papers and patents that describe that we’ve established this effect in youngsters who are elementary and high school aged kids. And right now we have a big study looking at division one athletes or northwestern athletes and NIH study, it’s a five year project. That was won on the strength of the original work that we did describing what is now a different neural signature. It doesn’t look anything like the language signature. There are other ingredients that are especially sensitive to head injury. And we can see this right now. I know that the whole issue of diagnosing concussion is a tricky one. And again, historically, people have been looking at vision. They’ve been looking at balance, but looking at hearing is fairly new. And one of the things that we have done in a couple of our studies is we followed our North Side Football League. These are our kids, and we gave them the vision test, the balance tests and the hearing tests. And you could see that they each tell us different things. So they’re not redundant. So you know how wonderful my vision is for a clinician, a trainer, a coach, position, to be able to look at balance, look at vision, look at hearing, and to have this biological marker that would inform the diagnosis of the injury and also inform return to play, because we know that concussions often occur in the same person shortly after they’ve had a concussion. And so, it might be that with the current measures that we have available, it looks as though the athlete is ready to return to play. But maybe if you had a more sensitive measure and objective measure, because again, the athletes are very motivated to do whatever they can to get back on the field. But if you have an objective measure that doesn’t require any kind of an overt response, wouldn’t it be great to know? Let’s just wait another week. His brain isn’t quite ready, just to wait a week or two. I mean, we see that the changes in the brain change very rapidly, usually as individuals, athletes, recover from their concussions. Richard Miles (34:44): Nina, I know you have a lab there where you can assess people with that method. Is this something that could be done with a medical device? It could be done in a doctor’s office or even in a trainer’s room? Nina Kraus (34:54): That’s what we do. When we went out to LA, we did this testing in instrument closets, and wherever we could find a spot, it’s very portable right now. It’s the size of a laptop. Richard Miles (35:04): Nina, this has been fascinating. And like I said, this could be episode one of a thirty podcast series on just sounds. I could listen to this all day and I’ll go meta for just one second here. We’re actually doing this in the medium of podcasting, right, that has made a huge resurgence as people like to listen now. And I don’t know what that says about humans or our society in general, but it is a throwback to the days of the thirties and forties, right? When people consumed a lot of their entertainment from radio shows. Right? And what I like about it forced a little bit of your imagination, and play, because it’s not laid out for you visually, you’re listening to somebody sound or a sound clip of a particular event. And anyway, I thought I’d throw that in there. We’re talking about sound on a medium that is only sound. Nina Kraus (35:44): I love that. I love that. And actually I have to say for myself, I do a lot of my reading, listening to audio books. I think we all spend probably too much time looking at screens. And it’s just wonderful to kind of give your eyes a rest and listen. Of course I love radio and podcasts and I consume books that way. Sound is awesome. Richard Miles (36:05): Nina, thank you very much today for being on Radio Cade, hope to have you back maybe with an update on Brain Volts or your new research. Thank you very much for joining us today. Nina Kraus (36:13): Thank you for having me take care of Richard. Bye. Outro (36:18): Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeek. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Is Bitcoin a store of value during a financial crisis? What role does it play in a portfolio? Scott Melker, a successful trader and one of the leading voices of Cryptos discusses the origins of bitcoin, its uses, and what the future may look like. *This episode was originally released on March 25, 2020.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio (00:38): Today, we are joined by Scott Melker. He is a leading voice in cryptocurrency. He’s a trader he’s an advisor. He formerly was a DJ and at times like these discussing cryptocurrency is more than just whether or not Bitcoin is an investment. It’s actually an indictment on where we are as a society, monetarily, fiscally. What does all of this mean? Scott, welcome to the program. It’s great to have you. Scott Melker (01:04): Thank you so much for having me. I’m truly honored. James Di Virgilio (01:06): Now, Scott, I know your background really for the first 15, 20 years of your career was as a DJ. In fact, you gained a significant amount of fame doing that. Then at some point in time, you got into dealing with the cryptos. Tell us about that transition and how that happened. Scott Melker (01:20): As you said, it was about two decades of DJ and music with a million other projects. On the side, I was always superficially interested in trading and investing. My parents gave me a pretty good base and understanding of money and finances and how to save. But as a trader, I was pretty much an amateur and actually pretty terrible at it, especially riding through the recession of 2008 and all of those things. But as I began to feel like I was aging out of music, I’m in my forties. Now I was deejaying to kids that were twenty, just became very awkward. I started to look for other things, but at the time when, if you were trading anything, crypto became just absolutely huge. You couldn’t stop hearing about it. It was at the end of 2016, beginning of 2017 and so I put a little money into it. I started trading it and just by virtue of being in the right place at the right time, it quickly became something that could sustain and become a career. So I sort of fell into it to some degree. And then interestingly, at the same time, my daughter who’s now five was born and alongside, already feeling like I was too old for a music production and deejaying having her really took me off the road and put me back in front of my screens to trading. So she was born and I had to go to South by Southwest to play a concert literally the next day and going away and having that feeling. I knew that that was just not going to be my future path. And so I decided to pack it in and focus on trading crypto. James Di Virgilio (02:39): Now learning is a large part of this podcast. We’ve had chances to talk to so many different innovators, entrepreneurs, creativity, leaders, you jumped into a field that was entirely different from what you did, how difficult was it to learn the concepts behind how to trade, how to trade correctly, how not to lose your money, how to invest. And then how did you learn? What was your primary tool for learning? Scott Melker (03:02): Like I said, I’ve had a level of base knowledge. I at least understood the basics of technical analysis and charts and had a bit of an understanding of chart patterns and things like that. And I think I also had a generally good understanding of how to balance a portfolio, not trade with all your money and basically just be responsible as a whole. But to some degree it was a trial by fire. Like I think it was for anyone else. Trading crypto is very different than trading stocks or any other assets. It is primarily technical being that almost everyone is using charts as opposed to fundamentals. There’s no PNL or quarterly earnings report for Bitcoin. There’s no CEO to call and see what your expectations are for the next year. So you’re really trading based on charts, which is effectively just trying to guess, where are the big players in the market are likely to inflict the most pain on retail traders, where they’re likely to sell and where they’re likely to buy and try to be on their team. So that’s something you can do by gaging sentiment and looking at a chart. But as I said, it was somewhat of a trial by fire. Luckily I found a friend who became a mentor who is an exceptional trader for over 20 years. His name’s Christopher Inks of Texas West Capitol and to some degree I forced myself under his wing. And when 2017, I really learned even more by multiples of what I knew before. And at that time, I really think I honed it in and became a pretty exceptional trader. James Di Virgilio (04:22): So as a voice for crypto, as someone who’s living this and breathing this every day, we’re going through a financial crisis right now, due to coronavirus. There’s a lot of thought that something like Bitcoin or maybe another coin, but cryptos in general could serve as the antithesis of what we see with central banks around the world here in the US we’re printing trillions of dollars to bail out the country. And obviously the idea for something like Bitcoin is if you can have a stable currency that maintains its value, you’re not going to have a Fiat currency, right. A currency that can be manipulated by a government that can be inflated. That can be cheapened. Do you see that as a narrative for Bitcoin in the long run? Or is that an idea that was nice and novel, but not reality? Scott Melker (05:06): Uh, honestly, it’s a bit of both. So I think that the notion that people would rush to Bitcoin when they’re losing their money in a risk off environment is somewhat absurd. Never in history have people when they’re losing their money in the market, run into something that’s perceived as riskier, they run to cash, right? And so at presence, even though a dollar is inflationary, it’s behaving somewhat deflationary in that the entire world is trying to rush into dollars. So I don’t know if you’ve seen lately, but for example, recently against the Australian dollar, the dollar rose 20% in value in a matter of hours. So right now people want dollars. And so I don’t think that notion is correct at the moment, but when you look at Bitcoin as a whole, it’s not a hedge against your portfolio dropping what it is a hedge against is that inflationary environment of Fiat because Bitcoin itself is deflationary. So I think there’s a differentiation between what the given price of Bitcoin is at any moment and what its actual true value is to look at a society like Venezuela country, like Venezuela, where they have hyperinflation a suitcase of money. It doesn’t even buy you a loaf of bread. There are people who, regardless of what the price is on Coinbase or an American crypto exchange, are there are people who are surviving strictly because they’re mining or trading or transacting in Bitcoin. So it has real life use cases in a lot of countries and a lot of the situations around the world, but that’s just never been seen on a macro level. So I don’t believe it’s a store of value like gold or something like that. I’ve never really subscribed to the digital gold or store value narrative. But I do think that in certain environments, when it really goes somewhat madmax on the planet, unfortunately, which could be a future that we’re somewhat headed towards. I think that it has tremendous value. So I believe that everyone should have at least minimal exposure to Bitcoin, just in case of the worst case scenario. Not because they believe that next week it’ll necessarily be priced higher or lower. James Di Virgilio (06:59): Well, the Venezuela example is interesting because as you mentioned, if we live in a Keynesian and if you’re not an economist, John Maynard Keynes, a leading economist in the 1920s and thirties, you could say is largely responsible for how most of the world manages debt and fiscal responsibility, monetary policy. Nowadays, you can certainly make, as you mentioned, this longterm argument that Bitcoin, if you lose your currency, right, runaway inflation becomes something you may go to because now you and I need to exchange goods and services in Venezuela. The last thing we want to do is do that in the Venezuelan currency, because that is wildly losing value every single day. So we choose to use something like Bitcoin, obviously gold function this way, really, for most of human history, the idea is Bitcoin of course could function that way. I think you’re articulating very nice that it’s nowhere near that yet. And the reason for that, it’s very simple to be a usable, consistent currency. It needs to be stable. And that’s why the U S dollar, despite I think a lot of real fundamental issues that we could bring up and spend an hour talking about today is still that safe haven is right now. As far as history goes, that’s your most proven safe asset. Scott Melker (08:01): The only true safe haven in my eyes. But I do think that we’re going to see that change likely very soon not to be alarmist, but the fact that the value of the dollar is rising so fast is not actually a particularly good thing. But like you said that’s a conversation for another day. James Di Virgilio (08:16): Right? And that is certainly an interesting one. I mean, like we said, fundamentally where we are as a world and what we’re doing with monetary policy matters a lot. In fact, that’s something I talk about in my profession. Maybe more frequently than anything is to learn about monetary policy study. What’s good or bad. That’s going to change the world significantly. And that could certainly in the future be an opportunity for something like Bitcoin. Now I think a big hurdle for most people on Bitcoin is understanding why it’s possibly even theoretically, a stable currency. Let’s assume the best case scenario in this becomes stable. What is a Bitcoin? How do we get a Bitcoin? It’s easy to understand gold it’s in the ground. I mine it, people think it’s valuable. Explain to us how Bitcoin has any value or how it’s stable or what it really is. Cause I know that loses most people right here in this part of the conversation. Scott Melker (09:02): Well, it’s certainly not stable and I don’t necessarily believe that it will be. And actually as a trader, the volatility is what draws so many people to trading Bitcoin and their interest in it. But a Bitcoin it’s a protocol it’s math. And the computer has to effectively at the most basic level, computers around the world are competing to solve a complicated math problem. And when they solve it, that creates Bitcoin. It’s a ledger that keeps these transactions on the blockchain. And once an individual block is locked, it’s effectively unhackable. And so the idea is that you’re not on a centralized server somewhere. You know, it’s decentralized, it’s spread all over the planet and the miners are creating Bitcoin. And like I said, you have these unhackable blockchain decentralized it’s trustless. You don’t have to trust a government or a central party. And that’s really the appeal to a lot of people because you want to use PayPal or your bank or whoever it is. There’s a third party involved in you transacting with someone else. And this eliminates that third party in a manner where you’re at much less risk. But that said as an average person to understand that, you have to understand that you are now your own bank, nobody is going to bail you out. If you get hacked or if you get your Bitcoins stolen, you’re not insured. So for the average person, I think it’s actually terrifying. Most of them don’t even understand that. I think they just buy it on an exchange and they leave it there. When you buy Bitcoin on an exchange and you leave it there, it’s not really yours. There’s a saying in crypto, uh, not your Bitcoin If you don’t have the private T’s basically. So unless you put it on your own hardware wallet or move it somewhere offline, I mean, there’s a conversation that could go for hours. And, and it’s funny because I actually was recently the victim of a pretty major hack attempt by some famous hackers in Europe. They swapped my SIM card. They attacked my exchange accounts, but because I have my proper security in place, I didn’t actually lose any money. They made my life really miserable for a couple of weeks. But stories like that are going to drive your average retail person away from Bitcoin. And let’s be honest, in 2017, when everyone was interested in Bitcoin, they were not interested in it because it was a hedge against inflation or because it could protect them from their government. They were buying it because someone told them that they make a ton of money selling it later. That’s not a use case. That’s just FOMO, fear of missing out. So at the end of the day, you can’t explain all of that to a five-year-old effectively. And I think that’s been one of the greatest impediments to Bitcoin because people just don’t want to learn and they don’t want to deal with that. They don’t want to go buy a private hardware wallet and understand their seed phrases and private T’s, and that they got to put one on a safe and one of the safe deposit box. It’s really crazy. I mean, you really are your own bank. James Di Virgilio (11:32): Yeah. And everything you just said there, I think is exactly the reason why Bitcoin is nowhere near a currency adoption, despite in a theoretical world, how nice it does sound on a macro level. Look at what it can do. Look at the hedge against currencies. Those are all nice thoughts. But the function as that kind of store of value, one of the things is it really needs to be simple and easy to understand. You mentioned something that obviously a significant hurdle for Bitcoin, and this is this idea of safety, your digital wallet being safe every single day. We know of people getting robbed or mugged or their money being stolen, their dollars being stolen. Right? But it’s rather unlikely that someone’s going to get into your bank account and pull your money out without stealing your credit card or something of that nature. But even when that happens, Scott, the banks will usually cover you, right? But if somebody comes and takes my digital wallet, what happens? Scott Melker (12:21): If they’re not taking your digital wallet, per se, what they’re basically doing is they transfer your Bitcoin through many ways of hacking, but they’re sending their Bitcoin from your wallet into theirs and becomes untraceable. They spread it around and it’s gone and there’s no way to go get it back. So yes, you’re at tremendous risk, but there’s a flip side to that, which is that if you’re carrying cash, say you’re leading an African country right now, or you’re a refugee, or you’re running away from this virus and you get to the border, we’ve all heard the stories you want to come into the country, give us everything you’ve got. Your cash, your gold, your everything. So physical goods are still far easier to steal and in an environment like that, going back to it, yes, we’re not talking about going into your bank and stealing your money. Scott Melker (13:02): But if you’re really in a desperate situation and you have physical goods, those are more likely to be taken from you. If you have your seed phrases in your head, you don’t even need to have a physical hardware wallet, all that is the place to store your private keys. Well, your Bitcoin goes with you wherever you go, and nobody can steal it from you in that regard. So as a hedge against bad actors, as a hedge against dishonest government or the hedge against all of these bad things that could be coming for us in the future, and I’m not trying to be alarmist, I don’t think we’re going on mad max or anything, but it happens in other places in the world and Bitcoin or some digital currency can save your life. In that scenario, you will be able to trim back when you cross that border. James Di Virgilio (13:40): And this is not historically unprecedented. If you think back on the history of gold and monetary value in general, that same problem that you just illustrated was the original problem that led to winding up with a dollar in your pocket, right? That was the issue. Hey, I’m carrying all of this value from the goods that I have just transacted with. And now I’m at risk of being robbed or mugged, or my train is going to get stolen. And so how do we find a way to deposit money now in the city I’m in. Travel to the next one with effectively, nothing but still have access to that money. And that was a very, a nice example. I think of something that does become appealing in a frontier situation. If you will, now let’s focus back in on trading it. You mentioned it’s very speculative in a lot of ways and an overly simplified version trading Bitcoin, it sort of feels like tulip mania and that it’s largely people driven. That’s kind of what you’re talking about. When you’re looking at sentiment and charts, no one has any idea what Bitcoin is worth, right? And you couldn’t tell me what it’s worth, but it’s fundamentally worth what you’re looking at is what people think that it’s worth. Talk a little bit about the human behavior impact on cryptos. Scott Melker (14:41): So it’s my opinion and on chain metrics, somewhat support this, but everybody has their own opinion. I believe if you look at the way that Bitcoin transacts, the it moves between exchanges and the ways that it trades is that it’s still a highly manipulated asset. And by the way, I believe everything is a highly manipulated asset. So that’s not necessarily a point against, but it’s a highly manipulated asset. That’s traded by a few huge players. That’s in our industry. We like to call whales and effectively in markets in general, they just players like compound operator or whatever you want to call them. Their general goal is to inflict as much pain on retail as possible. They want to take advantage of where your stop loss might be or where you might be interested in buying and selling. And they want to just basically abuse you. And that’s the way that markets work. And so it’s a very frictionless environment with Bitcoin trading. One person with a whole lot of Bitcoin can move the books, 30, 40, 50% in a matter of hours, but that offers a tremendous amount of opportunity. If you’re a trader and you can get on the right side of those moves, which is basically what I mentioned earlier, that you think about it. Everybody I think is somewhat, at least superficially aware of what happened to Bitcoin two weeks ago. And it dropped 50% in one day. But if you look at the on chain metrics, 70% of all Bitcoin basically has not moved in ages, right? It’s the people who mine it, the original holders, whatever they’re holding onto it for dear life, it’s going nowhere. So when you look at the way that Bitcoin moved around and also there’s a huge percentage that’s been lost, and obviously there’s a finite amount of Bitcoin that’s going to ever be mined. So you’re really talking about 20, 25% of the Bitcoin that exists in the world is what’s being traded and moved around and affecting the price of the market. So it’s very strange in that regard, but if you look at what was happening, it’s basically a few people likely got together and decided, Hey, we’re just going to dump all this Bitcoin on the market, on the exchanges. And we’re going to absolutely destroy the price. Why would they do that? There’s a million reasons to speculate. Maybe they had a margin call because the market was crashing and they had to sell Bitcoin for a margin call. Maybe they’ve mined so much Bitcoin since 2009 or 2010, that they have so much supply to dump on the market. That for them, it doesn’t matter if they sell it at 20,000 or 2000, it’s just profit. They did it for a dollar who cares if they sell it for 2000 or 10,000, maybe they want to move into cash. It doesn’t really matter the reason. We just know that it’s a few people who are doing it, but when you look at the price of Bitcoin, as we speak in the mid six thousands, it dropped basically from 8,000 to 3,600, that’s a humongous move, but it’s already back to 6,600. And from 3,600, it bounced to almost 6,000 in a matter of 12 hours. So as a trader theres far more money to be made by longing catching the bottom, buying somewhere between 3,640-4500 and just selling it 12 hours later at 6,000 than there even was in being short or selling during that entire move down. James Di Virgilio (17:34): So right. I mean, absolutely. Is there any element of catching a falling knife there? Did you just time that based upon, Hey, I caught the falling knife correctly, it didn’t cut me. Or is there a level of predictability, like you said, you’re telling story of really low volume, significant price trades that you feel like, Hey, there is a floor here, right? Basically cryptocurrencies, aren’t going to zero. Bitcoin’s not going to zero. Scott Melker (17:58): Right. It’s not, but there’s a leverage exchange. That’s the biggest in the world that almost took Bitcoin to zero during that move because of an inefficient exchange. So Bitcoin on that exchange could have touched zero that day. If it had not turned the exchange off, which is somewhat astounding and shows you how much the market is affected by traders and those being high leverage traders, which is effectively worse odds than throwing craps in Vegas, at least you get free drinks there. I think there’s always an element of touching a falling knife. I generally, as a trader and this becomes a technical thing, but I look for when a level that seems key is recaptured as support, as opposed to just trying to catch it on the way down. But I’ll tell you, I got very lucky on that move. I had orders at 4,000 that had been sitting there for I mean months and it happened in the middle of the night. I woke up, I looked at my phone, the price of Bitcoin was $5,800. And I had bought it at $4,000, three hours before, while I was sleeping. I sold it immediately for an almost 50% profit. James Di Virgilio (18:54): Yeah. Those are the moments as a trader, right? That keep you coming back now, how do we apply this? What’s your advice for the average family out there? They’re investing in their 401k. They’ve got some real estate they’re doing the very normal things. How do they employ or should they employ Bitcoin or a crypto in their portfolio? Scott Melker (19:12): I’m certainly not a financial advisor. I guess I should put that disclaimer out there. As I mentioned before, I believe that everybody should have at least minimal exposure to it. 1%, 2%, for me, I’m comfortable more 5% to 10%, but how do you do that? I think that the best way, like any market might invest in your 401k is to start small and dollar cost average until you have a full position. I mean, it’s such a volatile asset that one week you can be buying it at $8,000 in the next week at $3000 and then a week later at $14,000. So trying to catch a price that you’re comfortable with for most people, if they’re not traders is an extremely uncomfortable thing. So set up an automatic buy and buy $500 worth of Bitcoin every Monday until you’ve bought the $10,000 allotment that you have for yourself or do it once a month or whatever that is. I think that’s safer for more mentally stable people than traders, the safer and smarter way probably to acquire a position. James Di Virgilio (20:06): So Bitcoin is a tremendously creative and innovative idea. If this podcast could interview the founder of Bitcoin, of course, no one really knows exactly who this person is. Right. We would certainly do it because of creativity. I often find that fields overlap in life, whether you’re an artist or a musician or a trader, you can find commonalities. What commonalities have you found between your life as a musician and your life as a crypto guru? Scott Melker (20:31): The obvious ones, which is that I’ve forged the path where I never had to have a boss, which is always very important to me. It’s funny you guys had my dad on the show recently, definitely got the best of what the Melker had to offer in that case. You know, my parents and I was very fortunate. They sent me to an Ivy League University. They were able to leave me without student debt. And then one day I called them and said, I’m going to be a DJ. When I graduated with my Ivy League degree, I could have gone at that time. It was very easy to get investment banking job and go to the wall street route, like all of my friends, but I was just never the kind of person. I don’t know if it’s an acceptance of authority or that I’m a bit of an ADHD case and I’m scattered. And I don’t fit into those environments, but I was always someone who was trying to forge my own path. So I’d say the most common theme obviously is that I make my own schedule. I work when I want to work and I worked as hard as I want to work, which usually is very hard, honestly, when you’re doing it yourself. So that’s one I can tell you on a creative level, it’s very funny. I produced music for forever and using all of these different DWS, you have all your workstations, Ableton, Logic, Pro Tools. To me, it almost feels the same to sit in front of a naked chart and draw the patterns and lines. Even the shortcuts that you use on the keyboard are very familiar. So to me it’s actually very interesting, I almost feel like I’m making music when I’m drawing and identifying levels on a chart. And that’s something that other musicians have actually mentioned to me as well. So there is some creativity and kind of a big game, but I would say that those are the biggest similarities. Really. I think that transition was more of retaining the same sort of lifestyle of being a self starter and not having to really answer to someone James Di Virgilio (22:05): Let’s go to that moment where you told your parents that you were going to be a DJ after graduating from an Ivy League school. What was that moment like for them and for you? Were they supportive? Were they frustrated? Tell me about that. Scott Melker (22:18): My parents have never been, even for one second of my life, anything other than supportive, it’s more nuanced than that. So first I want to see a music business while also deejaying. So I got a job in New York with a music agent moved to New York. And the first day that I showed up for my job, he told me that he had given the job to his nephew instead. So it was a somewhat forced exit from the music business very early in that regard, but deejaying and making music was always at the core of what I wanted to do. My parents were extremely supportive. I think they always believed that I would find success one way or another. And I didn’t always, I mean, I’ve failed more than I exceeded to some degree. JingingThat’s definitely stumbled forward through certain portions of my life. And I have needed help. There was a time when I was an Ivy League graduate five years out of college and I was deejaying once or twice a week in New York at night for some somewhat of a pittance. And I was delivering packages during the day while all my friends were on wall street. It definitely, wasn’t always easy, but my parents never batted an eye for a second. I have an older brother who’s a very successful physician. So I think that I can’t speak to their mentality about it, but I guess it’s good that they had one who was on the right path out of the way all right for their creative lunatics son kind of came through. But yeah, I’ve never had a conversation with my parents that I felt was uncomfortable about my future, because I always knew that they would talk it through with me, provide good advice and then get behind me. James Di Virgilio (23:37): So they gave you a lot of independence and what that independence, you find yourself in New York, you’re deejaying a couple of gigs. You’re delivering packages. What was your mindset at that time? And how’d you get through it? How’d you stick with following your passion, pursuing the path you were on? Scott Melker (23:53): It was hard. I was broke and there wasn’t really that much hope, I guess. I mean, I always had hope, but there was no really a major light at the end of the tunnel. At that point, musically, I was playing local bars and clubs every once in a while. I get a big club gig, but you’re talking about sustaining yourself without health insurance. You know, you have to pay for your own health insurance or without any guarantee that that gig will be there next week. So great. You made $500 tonight, but maybe next Friday the club’s going to close or nobody’s going to show up and you’re not going to have a job the next week. So it was always a constant grind and hustle for the next gig or the next thing. And then eventually like an actor or any musician, you kind of catch your break for me, it was in 2006, a friend called me in and said, listen, they’re auditioning DJs for this big tour in Japan, they audition 50 DJs. I got the job for an artist named Toshi Kubota, who is effectively, you know, they call them the Michael Jackson in Japan. It was his 20th anniversary tour. I had no idea what a big deal it was. I was just trying to get a job. I happened to bond with the drummer who was doing the auditions and we kind of jammed out. And so I spent the next two months rehearsing. And then five months after that, traveling in Japan, playing stadiums in 30,000 to 50,000 person shows as the DJ and opening act and percussionist in a 14 person band for this huge Japanese artists that not only offered some financial help because I got paid well for it. But it also gave me a lot of confidence in the platform to jump from there and do other things. James Di Virgilio (25:18): So you mentioned that you’ve failed quite a bit, right? Like anyone who’s done anything successfully, especially somebody who’s blazed a trail on their own. How did you keep learning from the failure without letting it beat you down to the point where you would just quit? Scott Melker (25:32): I dunno. I think it becomes routine to some degree, not to say that you become negative about it, but hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. I started a print publication in Philadelphia after I moved back from New York to Philadelphia, where I went to school and it launched and it was really like great success, well received. And two months later, 9/11 happened and all the businesses that were my advertisers started to go out of business. And so that was interesting experience and kind of lighten it probably to a lot. What’s going to happen to people now, but I think I’ve always had a positive support system for better or for worse. I would say that I knew that if something really went bad, I would have a soft landing. I never feared being homeless. I could have always gone back to my parents. I never did, but I guess mentally, you know that. And so I’m very fortunate to have a good support system in that regard as well, but I really never cared so much when I failed. I always just looked on the bright side and enjoyed what I was doing. I absolutely absolutely loved music from the earliest age. I started playing piano at five. I was a singer and saxophone player and everything. So it was just, music was always what I wanted to do. So at any point, regardless of what my financial situation was or how much I was working, I was just really excited be making music and to be a part of that scene, my passion for what I was actually doing, carried me through largely the rough times. James Di Virgilio (26:50): And this is interesting because given your background as a musician, what would you say to people that are inspiring to follow their passion, but maybe there’s no money in it or there’s inability to make a career out of it at the moment, do you have a view on the balance between continuing to drive for your passion, but also maybe providing for yourself and your future and your family. It’s a delicate dance to make. What’s your counsel on that? Having done that successfully kind of in several arenas. Scott Melker (27:16): I think it’s largely dependent on the individual, their financial situation, where they are in their life. And again, like how much of, I guess a support system they have. I think that at a certain age, you probably have to give up and become realistic. If you have a family, if you have kids, but if you’re a single person in this world with a true passion, I think that you should give it everything you possibly have until you can’t anymore. I know that if I had quit in 2005, I would have never known what was coming for me. But I really think that I would have a lot of regret not try my best and most passions that people have are things that they could probably do part time to some degree, go to your job and then come home and sacrifice your sleep and sleep four hours a night and make music and get it out there. I mean, it’s never been a time in history where it’s been easier with social media and all of these platforms, the SoundCloud and Spotify to get your work out there. When I was making music, I was one of those guys, on Canal St in New York City with CDs trying to get stores to sell my CDs and handing them out to strangers and stuff. So it is much easier now I think, I mean, you have to cut through the noise, but if you’re truly talented and you truly believe and you work hard enough, listen, the important thing to understand is you can be passionate about something, but if you’re bad at it, it’s not going to happen. I hate to say that, but if you have a discernible talent and you try your hardest, I do believe that the career that you dreamed of probably won’t happen. But I do think that you can probably make a living pursuing your passion. James Di Virgilio (28:40): Yeah. I think that’s really good advice. You balanced a lot of things there. One is balancing responsibility. Where are you in life? Who are you responsible for, is what you’re doing, going to cause others to have to pick up the slack for you towards significantly alters their life. And then secondarily, if you are actually really good at something and you continue to do it, if you live in a society that’s free and able to invest in that sort of talent, I totally agree with you. It could be longer than you wanted it to be, but at some point in time, if you are good, if you are skilled, you will find a way to be able to craft something out of that. Now, who knows how much you’ll get out of that. But that’s a good feedback mechanism. And often failure, Scott is obviously feedback. It tells us whether or not we should continue or whether we should keep going as a trader. You know, the failure is really a part of every single day, practically in your life. Uh, because traders traders are seeking to make very small wins, right? 52%, 53%, 54% of your trades are wins. You’re a hero. You’re a legend. So failure is something you learned to live with. I think it’s very helpful. I read on your Twitter about how you said really emotionally. You’re not that involved in what happens if you lose a lot, you can take it. You have a high pain tolerance, and it makes sense, given what you’ve just said in your life, there’s a lot of dots connecting there to the foundational floor. You’ve built what you view as success, which you view as failure. And one thing I’m not hearing a lot in your story is a prideful angle. I’m hearing a lot of humility with, Hey, I’m going after what I like and what I enjoy. And if I fail, it doesn’t mean I, myself am a failure as a person. It’s a chance for me to respond to what I’m learning. Scott Melker (30:06): I’ve never heard it put that way, but I do think humility was another thing that was deeply ingrained from my parents. I just feel like unless you become the biggest artist in the world or the biggest, this and that, where your ego is being fed 24/7. And I think that most people probably maintain that humility because especially as an artist, you know, that it can all be taken away from you in a second. I mean, how many, one hit wonders are there who bought their Ferrari and then returned it for half or had it repoed six months later? It’s just the reality of being a creative is that it’s not the 1950s. You don’t have a job your entire life. You don’t have a pension. Eventually you probably are not going to be at the top of your game and it’s somewhat a cycle. So I think that you just have to accept that whether you want to skin it as failure or whether it’s just the downturn or whether it’s that slow, steep descent from popularity into oblivion, that it’s coming for. Almost all of us who are not, like I said, just add a job and working for a boss who is able that boring and, and you know that you’ll have your job. So I don’t see how you can really be too prideful. You know, I’m proud of the things I’ve accomplished, but I also recognize that it was not all my doing. I had a lot of support and that it was very hard along the way. James Di Virgilio (31:13): Scott, it’s been excellent talking with you today. Kind of getting your background, hearing your stories, talking about cryptocurrency, music, trading. So many things you can follow Scott and find a lot of his insights on his Twitter feed the Wolf of all streets. Very interesting stuff there. He is Scott Melker. Scott, thank you for joining us today. Scott Melker (31:31): Well, thank you so much. It was really my pleasure. James Di Virgilio (31:33): And for Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio Outro (31:37): Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists, Jacob Lawson.

The weather; everyone talks about it, so the old joke goes, no one does anything about it. Dr. Leela Watson, founder and CEO of InitWeather, says that by using advanced algorithms and machine learning, we can make faster and more reliable predictions about the weather that can help a wide range of industries, including agriculture, energy, and aerospace. “When I started this,” said Dr. Watson, “it was, oh , let’s just do this. And then when you dive into it, you realize why not so many people have been using machine learning within weather, because it is such a big problem. And just sorting through all the different ways that it can be done is a challenge.” TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace, Richard Miles: 0:40 The weather: everyone talks about it, but so the old joke goes, no one does anything about it. However, using advanced algorithms and machine learning, we can make faster and better predictions about the weather that can help a wide range of industries. Welcome to Radio Cade . I’m your host, Richard Miles. Today I’m very pleased to welcome Dr. Leela Watson, a former NASA meteorologist, and the co-founder and CEO of InitWeather. Welcome to Radio Cade, Leela. Dr. Leela Watson: 1:05 Thank you. Thanks for having me. Richard Miles: 1:06 So Leela, I’m guessing that as a meteorologist, you have probably heard lots of jokes about the weather. Are there any good ones out there, because it’s not exactly comedy gold, right? Dr. Leela Watson: 1:15 No, it’s definitely not. I mean, I’ve heard them all, so I’m waiting for that really great one. That real zinger, that– Richard Miles: 1:20 That actually makes you laugh, right? Yeah. There are a lot of lame weather jokes, but none that I’ve heard that are really good. So that’s a tragedy for your profession, but anyway, why don’t we start out by explaining for the listener exactly what it is that InitWeather does. And as I understand it, you crunch a lot of existing data to come up with faster and more reliable forecast. Something that is very particularly useful for things like the agricultural industry. And of course, utility companies, as we saw in Texas a few weeks ago, actually. So, how does it weather differ from other weather forecasts? Dr. Leela Watson: 1:51 So, at a really basic level, what we do is we use machine learning to create better weather forecasts. So, the way that we’re different is that weather forecasts are generally made from computer weather models that are out there and forecasters take that information and make their weather forecast . So what we do in our product takes that weather data that’s available. We run it through our machine learning algorithm, and then we do create better weather forecasts than what are currently out there now. Richard Miles: 2:20 But you’re taking obviously, from more than one data set, when you see a weather forecast on the TV or in the newspaper, are they all drawing from the same pool of data or do they all have different data sources that go into that forecast? Dr. Leela Watson: 2:31 So when you watch a TV program, say you’re watching the evening news and they’re showing you graphics of the weather that’s coming through the front, that’s coming down, or precipitation that’s going to impact that area. Those are graphics that are produced from a weather model. So, a weather model at the most basic level is really just a series of equations that govern the atmosphere and create forecasts of temperature, precipitation, and all sorts of other variables. So, those forecasters on TV and the government, anywhere, are taking those weather models and then creating their own forecast, refining them a little bit and specifying for their particular area of interest. So, that’s one source of data for weather forecasts, and of course you have observational data. So what’s happening. now? You have weather stations that can give you your precipitation amounts, so your temperature, humidity, and all that. So, it’s kind of a combination. Forecasters look at tons and tons of data to make their forecasts . So not everybody uses the same thing, but generally there’s a certain set of weather models that everyone’s looking at. And of course, using your observations for your own local area to help make your forecast Richard Miles: 3:38 So InitWeather then, just so I understand, it’s not a person like you or somebody on your staff that’s sort of sorting through this like a news station might; you’ve got a software program, I’d take it right? That sucks in all this data. Is it faster guesses about what the weather’s going to be like, or do they turn out to be more reliable or is it both? Dr. Leela Watson: 3:56 Most specifically, it’s more reliable forecasts because we do rely on other data that’s out there. So, whenever that data becomes available, then we take it and run it through our algorithm . So, sometimes in some cases, yes, we can be a little faster than what’s out there, but really what we’re shooting for is more reliable, so that various industries, people who work in those industries, can then use our forecasts more reliably than what’s already out there and available. Of course, everybody wants a better forecast. So, that’s what we’re trying to give them. Richard Miles: 4:24 So, Leela, if you could give me an idea of what’s sort of the degree of precision that say a farmer or a large agricultural company needs in order to count as a better forecast for them? Let’s say next week, a normal weather forecast say, well, we think we’re going to have between three to five inches of rain in your area. If you say, okay, it’s only going to be two to four. Is that valuable information to that farmer, that agricultural business? What degree of precision are we talking about? Dr. Leela Watson: 4:47 That’s absolutely valuable. And for the general public, a three-day to five-day forecast that you get from the local weather from the national weather service is good enough, but for a lot of industries, they need to have more specific forecasts , especially tailored for their areas. For example, in agriculture, temperature’s actually obviously a huge, huge issue, especially frost or freezing temperatures, or if there’s excess of heat. So for example, if we talk about when are we going to reach freezing? So say that we have a forecast that says, oh, it’s going to be about 30 to 32 degrees on this particular night. Well, that’s a big deal. If somebody is trying to protect their crops from being damaged by freezing temperatures, if they’re off, if it turns out to be 35, well, then they’ve gone through all these procedures to protect their crops and then they didn’t really need to do that. They could have saved that time and money doing something else. On the other hand, if the forecast is saying, oh, it’s going to be about 35 degrees, and then all of a sudden it hits 30, well, that’s a big problem too. They have to take these preventative measures to protect their crops. So, having something very accurate is very important for them. Richard Miles: 5:58 I see. So if you can even buy them a few hours, for instance, if you know it’s going to hit freezing at exactly 2:30 AM, as opposed to 4 or 12 or wetter, then that could make the difference between getting out that equipment, say to save a citrus crop or something like that and not. Is that more or less accurate? Dr. Leela Watson: 6:11 Absolutely. It’s not only how low the temperature will go, but like you mentioned, what’s the timing, especially with precipitation, also. We can do pretty good with precipitation forecast, but usually we’re off with timing or maybe location, and that stuff is very important to the farmers that are relying on precipitation for their crops and definitely in other industries as well. Richard Miles: 6:33 So give us an idea of the other industries. I mean, I mentioned that the utility industry, the whole experience in Texas, where they had to sub freezing weathers for a long time, they didn’t really know, is that a one-off thing or is that a common problem for utility companies as they try to forecast demand and so on? Would something InitWeather give them as much of an advantage as say a farmer? Dr. Leela Watson: 6:52 Absolutely. Yeah . Weather impacts almost every industry in some way or another. Of course, we hear a lot about severe weather and that has very detrimental effects on many industries. And then there’s of course, just the mundane weather. When are we going to reach freezing like I mentioned, or is it going to be very, very hot or lots of rain, but we work in many different industries, and one area that we also work in is aerospace. So, they’re not really concerned with temperatures at the surface; their big problem is upper-level winds. So, for them having accurate upper level winds forecast is very important, and it doesn’t even have to be a large wind event to make an issue for them. So, it’s just blowing slightly harder at the upper levels, well, that has an impact on their rocket. So, that could change their trajectory, it could blow the rocket, it could topple over. So there’s many, many different areas that, industries that the weather will impact. Richard Miles: 7:46 That’s fascinating, because that’s obviously a case in which being a little bit off can cost you a hundred million dollars or a lot of money if you lose a rocket or something like that. Is it correct? Are you partnering now with a company to get into the unmanned aerial vehicle space to collect very, very high altitude weather? Is that correct? Dr. Leela Watson: 8:03 That is actually a project we’re working on right now. So, we would love to be able to have better upper level observations, especially wind observations for the aerospace industry. And actually, it can be useful to other industries as well. Right now we rely on weather balloons. That technology is almost over a hundred years old and it does its job and it works okay, but we’re thinking let’s look to the future. How are we going to improve that some more? So the project we’re working on is to take a UAV and use it like a weather balloon and send it up vertically, collect weather observations, and bring it down and be able to do that multiple times in the leadup to a launch, so they can get that information and use that for their rocket trajectories and forecasting for launch. Richard Miles: 8:47 So very much like a custom design solution. This would be for a particular client who wants a very particular, say, launch window or period of time that you would put up that UAV. This wouldn’t be an ongoing service, because I imagine that’d be pretty expensive. Dr. Leela Watson: 8:58 Yes, it would be pretty expensive. Um, but so it would be designed for launches, and launches, they’re doing many, many more of them now, and there’s more launch sites that are opening up worldwide. So, there is a market for that. It’s still in its infancy, this project, but we’re hoping that it takes off soon. Richard Miles: 9:16 Tell us a little bit, Leela, about the origin stories of InitWeather. For some young companies or inventors, it’s the classic Eureka moment: all of a sudden you have this blinding insight. Was it like that for you and your co-founders? Did it just dawn on you: hey, we’ve got something that we can package into a model that is very useful? Or did you just sort of iterate or stumble your way towards that model? Dr. Leela Watson: 9:36 I would say it was years in the making for me. My job before I started this company was working for NASA’s applied meteorology unit. So, we had a contract and I worked on that contract and we worked with NASA and supported their space program. And, I was the resident weather modeler, so I ran weather models and I came up with solutions specific to Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. And of course, everybody wants a better model, better output, but there’s only so much you can do with what you have. Now, what’s out there is , is pretty amazing, but it comes to a point where it’s very hard to keep improving that model. So, a series of events happened , um , and I started this company, and the idea was: let’s come up with a different way to improve the models instead of the same old way of throwing more computing resources at it, which equals more money for very little improvement. Let’s come up with a new way to create a better forecast. And of course, artificial intelligence machine learning is not new, and it had been being used in other industries and even within weather, but I hadn’t seen it implemented in the weather industry, maybe in little pockets, but that was my push to develop this and to create that better weather model. Richard Miles: 10:48 And Leela, remind me what year was that? That was 2016. Is that right? Dr. Leela Watson: 10:51 Correct. Richard Miles: 10:52 Yeah. And how has it been since then? This is a fairly common path, or it’s not an unusual path that a university researcher or somebody sort of in advanced research working in the private sector will say: Hey, I’ve got a new idea. They form a company and they take their technology invention to market. How has it been for InitWeather? How many employees do you have right now? And what has that journey been like so far? Dr. Leela Watson: 11:10 So we’re still very small. We’re only three of us, and it’s been a very slow process, I would say, because I think at the end of the day, it’s great to say: Oh yes, we’re going to use machine learning, create a better weather forecast, but there are so many different ways that you can use machine learning to create these better forecasts. I always call it the original, big data problem. There’s so much data, and so it takes some time to gather that data, run it through the algorithm, decide what’s the best way to proceed, what the best data is. So, it has kind of been a learning process along the way as well. When I started this, it was: Oh , let’s just do this. And then when you dive into it, you realize why not so many people have been using machine learning within weather, because it is such a big problem. And just sorting through all the different ways that it can be done is a challenge, but we’ve gotten really great results. So, now we are in the process of selling product to a lot more customers, and we’re starting to grow now. Richard Miles: 12:06 That’s great news. I know you’ve done well in competition, including the Cade Prize competition, when you entered there and you were a finalist. I imagine it’s a different world, right? This is what always fascinates me, is that a lot of these pitch competitions or so on, you rarely encounter a bad idea. I mean, all the ideas are pretty good and you , you see them and you, you hear about them and go: well that, yes, it’s plausible, it’s useful. But then, getting from that stage where people will say, yep , good idea to , okay, who exactly is going to buy it or pay for this great idea, how do you do it in such a way that it’s sustainable and not just a one-off thing?, And that is particularly for people from a research background, sometimes can be frustrating I imagine. Dr. Leela Watson: 12:44 Absolutely. It can definitely be frustrating. And then within weather , we have to compete with free data, free weather, national weather service. They have issued their forecasts all the time and that’s free. You can just go to their website and look at it. But you know, private weather industry really focuses on specific industries and specific problems, and so that’s kind of what we’re going after. We want to help the industries and our customers that the national weather service forecast is not going to help them. You know, they need more specific information, and they need more consistently better information. So, I think that’s really important too . You know, there’s a lot of times that weather models or forecasters really hit one event really well. They nailed it, but we want to be able to do that all the time. And so that’s our goal with our machine learning product is be better and be consistent. Richard Miles: 13:30 Right, it’s a reliability factor. I think you’re probably onto something, concentrating on the agricultural field. I interviewed last year, the national director of the 4H Foundation, and she pointed out to me that farmers in particular have always been actually early adopters of technology, because they have to be. When you present them with something that actually saves them money right away, they’ll try it out, and they don’t need a whole lot of convincing. And then if it doesn’t work, well, then they stop. But if you can show them that it’s going to increase the yield or protect crops in your case, then they’re willing to give it a try. And a lot of the innovation that is actually later made it to the broader market starts in the agriculture market because of farmers trying to solve problems or agricultural companies trying to solve problems. Dr. Leela Watson: 14:09 Yeah, absolutely. Our first customers, the first people that came up to us were all within the agriculture industry. And that wasn’t actually even our focus at first, you know, we were kind of looking more towards commodities, which is agriculture to that in aerospace. And then we just had farms, farmers, anybody in the agriculture industry come up to us and say, well , this is really great. We could definitely use this. And that’s kind of how we got into that industry. So, they’ve been great. They’ve been willing to try our product and use it and it’s worked for them. So, we’re happy about that. Richard Miles: 14:41 I don’t know how much you work with commodities traders or if you’re pitching this product to them. But this idea of being able to seize on a market opportunity, even a few hours before somebody else, it hadn’t dawned on me that wow, that of course would be a valuable service that you could provide. If you were able to provide that again, that reliable data, you can only be really wrong once, right. People will quit using it . Dr. Leela Watson: 15:01 Absolutely. They do, they need that information and they need it quickly. And we’re definitely aware that we need to be correct. We’re not on a local news. We can’t be wrong and still keep our job if we don’t perform and produce something really great, they can just say: Hey, we’re done and move on. Richard Miles: 15:15 I was going to say probably the second, most proper type of weather joke is complaining about the weather man , right, who got it completely wrong? I think you’re part of a trend that’s obviously been underway for a while of being able to take large data, big data and crunch it and use it, really add value to a certain segment of the market. Obviously, probably not the retail market for quite a while . I’ve mentioned this before my daughter works in the insurance industry and the car insurance industry, and she was telling me that there’s one company that basically just has a huge data set on every single car produced, every single feature down to the nth degree, so that a car insurance company knows exactly how safe or unsafe that car is particularly now with semi-autonomous vehicles. And those companies that aggregate that data and sell it to the car insurance companies do pretty well, because that’s extremely valuable set of information that a handful of customers out there are willing to pay a lot of money for. Dr. Leela Watson: 16:05 Yeah, absolutely. I’ve noticed that there are many different industries that need that weather data and they don’t know how to get it, process it, and use it for their industry. So that’s definitely a big thing for weather companies too, is being able to get all that data, put it together in a way that is useful to them, presenting it in an easy to use way as well. Richard Miles: 16:25 So Leela, you mentioned you’re still very small ,about four people. How do you spend most of your day now? I don’t imagine it’s in sort of the research and , or is it? Or are you on the phone talking to clients or potential customers, or where do you put your energies at this point? Dr. Leela Watson: 16:39 A little bit of both. So I have a really great business partner, Jordanna, and she takes on a lot of the business side of things and allows me to keep my hands in the research part. So, I do a lot of coding still, and I really love that. I mean, that’s my bread and butter type thing. Of course, I am on the business side of things as well, but the idea was born out of my experience using weather models. So, we found that it was important for me to keep my hands in that side of things. I spend a lot of my day doing that. And then of cours,e we’re a new company or new-ish company, I should say, we’re small. So, we all have to do our part and do all the other administrative and business things that occur, so. Richard Miles: 17:15 So, I have to wonder with my limited experience of starting institutions, just the Cade Museum, we had a staff of four forever. And then all of a sudden we went to a staff of 30 almost overnight. And you always worry about what if we fail, but you never really think, well, what if we succeed? Then all of a sudden your life gets a lot busier and actually more complicated. So managing success is often part of the managing decline. So just a word of caution. So Leela, you were born and raised in Massachusetts, like a lot of people from the Northeast, you ended up in Florida. You picked up a bachelor’s degree at the University of Miami and then a Master’s and PhD at Florida State University. And you said your first real interest in the weather was after experiencing or surviving a hurricane in Miami, I’m not sure which. Tell us what was that like and how did that steer you into meteorology? Dr. Leela Watson: 17:56 It was actually just a small, small, I put in quotes, hurricane that actually had a big impact out of Miami, as far as flooding. I wasn’t very worried about it, and then I found that I was trying to get home–I was working actually–and the storm was coming up from the South, and I had to drive South back down to Miami. I was working in Fort Lauderdale and had to drive back down South. And so, when I left Fort Lauderdale things weren’t too bad, but by the time I got down to Miami, it was a different story, and my road was flooded and I had to find a different way of getting home. And it actually just left a big impact on me because for a small, again quote small storm, it had a big impact. So that really fascinated me. I’d always been fascinated by weather, but that was kind of the nail in the coffin that made me realize: Hey, I think this is what I want to do and study this. And so, that’s how I got into meteorology and decided to go to grad school and get my degree there. Richard Miles: 18:48 So you’d already graduated with your undergraduate degree and you were working after that, and that’s when you figured out, okay, this is pretty interesting. Dr. Leela Watson: 18:53 Yeah. So my undergraduate degree was environmental science. And so, I decided to move on to meteorology. I was still interested in environmental science, but meteorology just really fascinated me. So I moved onto that. Richard Miles: 19:07 So inventors often marched to the beat of a different drummer, and we’ve talked a lot of inventors and entrepreneurs on this show and , and often they have very interesting paths. What were you like as a kid? Were you a good student? What were your interests? Do you remember when you were small, let’s say in grade school first or second grade, do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up? Dr. Leela Watson: 19:24 I was definitely an introvert, and I was a good student. Weirdly enough, when I was young, I wanted to be a stockbroker. I don’t know why. Richard Miles: 19:39 Oh wow! That’s a very unusual first grade dream. Dr. Leela Watson: 19:39 I know, very weird, but as I grew up and grew older, I realized science was what I was really interested in. And so it was just a no-brainer for me to go down that path. I never thought I would do anything else. And as I got older, I knew again, I was going to go to grad school. When, I didn’t know, if I was going to take some time off and then go. But my path was actually pretty clear. And then the whole entrepreneurship thinking about business, it kind of had always been there. My father was a doctor, he had his own practice, and he always talked about business and how he wanted to be in business. So, that kind of got ingrained in me, and I started thinking about it early. I didn’t know if I would actually ever start my own business, but that seed was planted early. And then of course, just working and having so many ideas of how we could do things better from the science side, from the business side, from the marketing side, it became clear. Alright, this is my time. I need to do something about it and start my own business. Richard Miles: 20:31 So these things or these inclinations often run in families. You mentioned your dad was a doctor. Anyone else in your family, extended family, that is in the general field of numbers, number crunching? I think it’s really interesting you wanted to be a stockbroker. Ultimately, right, that’s processing big data every day for a lot of money or maybe a lot of money. Anyone else? Do you have siblings that do something similar, or? Dr. Leela Watson: 20:50 My brother is an engineer. My other brother is in computers. My sister was a stay at home mom, but she’s in the political arena now. So not quite the same path as me. I think it is interesting. The fact that I did want to be a stockbroker and then ended up meteorologist I guess my path is always to try to predict the future. That was the path I was on for my job. So, Richard Miles: 21:11 And certainly in both fields, stock picking and picking the weather, people know when you’re wrong, right? Dr. Leela Watson: 21:16 Yes, absolutely. Richard Miles: 21:17 There’s no hiding from your prediction, like oh I didn’t mean that. Dr. Leela Watson: 21:20 Yeah. At least I don’t have to worry about other people’s money. It’s just the weather. Is it going to rain on their head or not. Richard Miles: 21:24 Exactly. Exactly. You’re at the stage in your career now where you’ve had some early success and you’re probably asked to speak maybe to groups or people ask you for advice. What do you tell them? Are there any things that you know now that you should know known , say when you were a college freshmen or recent college graduate that you’ve learned either at NASA or in starting up InitWeather that you would impart to say a younger version of you, Dr. Leela Watson: 21:46 As far as choosing meteorology, I would definitely say, be ready for math and physics. Because when I got into meteorology, you see on the weather channel the graphics and talking about the weather, but then when you get into school, you realize the fundamentals behind the meteorology are all math and physics. And I’ve heard that a lot with students that came in to the meteorology program, they didn’t realize that was what it was. So you have to love science. You have to love math in order to succeed. Um, as far as starting my own business, what advice would I impart? Just be ready to work. It’s a lot of work you’re going to work all the time. I work pretty much every day of the week, but on the flip side, it’s something you love. It’s something that gives you happiness. I wake up and I’m happy to start work, which doesn’t always happen for everybody. So be ready to put your head down and grind and the rewards will come. Richard Miles: 22:38 So one thing I find fascinating is someone who goes from working for fairly large organization. So you’ve worked at NASA, a subcontractor, right? For NASA. So you worked for one of the largest organizations out there and you go to a four person business compare and contrast. What is that like? In terms of just the whole psychology of on one hand was my case. I worked for the Federal Government for a long time, you show up at work and you’re at a large office building with hundreds of thousands of people. You never have to worry. Who’s going to pay the light bill. You never have to worry about that sort of stuff. And then you go to this existence where you worry about that all the time. So was it a psychological hurdle? Was it exciting? Was it terrifying? All of the above? Dr. Leela Watson: 23:15 All of the above. Definitely. So working for a larger organization, your voice is not heard as much when you have a conference, there’s 30 people in the room talking and you can put your ideas out there, but there’s a whole lot of other people and ideas floating around. So sometimes you’d feel like you’re not heard. So going to a small group. It’s nice because everybody’s heard everybody’s ideas are taken into consideration as far as paying the electric bill and , and keeping me awake at night. Yes, I’ve definitely gone through that. I definitely wake up sometimes and think we need to do X, Y, and Z. It has to be done right now. And it is somewhat terrifying, but it’s very rewarding at the same time. And I like being small right now. I don’t think if we grew overnight, like you mentioned earlier, it’s a different set of problems. So it’s nice that we’re a small group. Now I can handle that now and hopefully we’ll grow and I’ll be able to transition into that managing a larger group as well. But I like it, how it is now, Richard Miles: 24:10 I think you put your finger on something you said earlier, and this is my own experience as well, going from the federal government to starting a little nonprofit . And when you’re working for larger organization, often you’re working on very big, exciting, important things, but you’re not exactly sure what your contribution was sometimes where you’re one of a cast of dozens or hundreds or thousands, but in your own little micro company or nonprofit by golly, you know, exactly at the end of the day, what you did get done or didn’t get done. And what your role in that success or failure was, there’s never any doubt about the importance of your role, whereas you do have sometimes at , and in much larger corporations, you think, well, I did a good job. It doesn’t matter. So what I tell people sometimes particularly if you were relatively young in your twenties and so on, consider working for a small corporation, small company, or a startup, because a lot of people that age want responsibility. And then unfortunately the large organization, you may not get that in your career until you’re considerably older before you get real managerial responsibility or decision-making authority. So it sounds like you’re happy with that trade off as well that you get to look back on your day and know precisely where the Leela Watson played a role and what it meant. Dr. Leela Watson: 25:15 Yeah, absolutely. Every day is different. And I love that. And every problem and challenge is different. And I love that. And I absolutely agree with somebody who wants to come into a smaller organization. Yes, you’re taking a risk because who knows what the future of that organization is, but you will absolutely be given responsibility when we hire anybody. We want them to take the reins . We want them to think outside the box and come up with new ideas and go off on their own and be innovative. And we hope that’s what they’ll do, because quite honestly, we don’t have time to micromanage everybody. So that’s what we’re looking for. And so if that’s what interests you in a small organization is absolutely a great place to be. Richard Miles: 25:54 So Leela, great advice. Thank you for being on Radio Cade and at a minimum, we now have at least one more person we can blame if the weather doesn’t turn out right now. We can be more precise about our blame. Like, Hey, it didn’t freeze exactly 2:30. Like they said it was going too. Dr. Leela Watson: 26:07 Yeah, we’ll take it. We’re used to it. Richard Miles: 26:10 Best of luck InitWeather you all have gotten a strong start and you look like you’re headed to a big things. And so I hope we can have you back at some point after your IPO, right. And you’re cashing out your millions of dollars. Anyway. Thank you very much for joining us on Radio Cade. Dr. Leela Watson: 26:25 Thank you, thanks for having me . Outro: 26:28 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Nasal swabs, something many people had never heard of until COVID, suddenly became very hard to get just two weeks into the pandemic. Dr. Summer Decker and her team at the University of South Florida quickly determined they could make the swabs on a 3D printer. After making the printed swabs FDA compliant, Decker was able to share the design for free with the world. Since then more than 60 million such swabs have been used in global COVID testing. “One of our emergency room physicians told me,” said Dr. Decker, “we are fighting a war and you gave us the bullets.” TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to radio K to podcast from the Cade museum for creativity and invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:40 3D nasal swab, a phrase that doesn’t roll off the tongue quickly and not the name of an indie band, but it has helped tremendously in COVID testing since the beginning of the pandemic. Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host Richard Miles. And today I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Summer Decker , Vice Chair for Research and Director, the 3D clinical applications at the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine. Welcome to Radio Cade, Dr. Decker . Dr. Summer Decker: 1:05 Thank you so much for having me I’m looking forward to this. Richard Miles: 1:07 Well , the first thing I got to ask is what’s up with Tampa. You guys are hitting it out of the park. Down there you’re one yourself, and now you have world-class research institutions. There’s something in the water. What is it about. Dr. Summer Decker: 1:18 Beautiful Tampa Bay, we attract some top sports talent as you will have seen in the last few months here with our Lightening and the Buccaneers and even our soccer team and our baseball team. And , uh , yeah, it’s been an exciting year for us here in Tampa, especially during COVID when things have been so tough, we all needed a little bit of cheer. So I think it’s the Tampa Bay water. Richard Miles: 1:38 I’ve got to say since we’ve started the Cade Museum project right away, USF University of South Florida came to our attention as just being this very innovative forward thinking research university that kind of started with humble origins, but man, you guys are doing pretty amazing things now. Dr. Summer Decker: 1:52 Well, I appreciate that. I was lucky enough actually, to do my doctorate here. And one of the things they really do train us on here at the medical school is to think differently about solutions to problems that maybe have been occurring for some time. And so I like to say we’re young and scrappy because we realized we’re up and coming university or up and coming medical school. And so we have that liberty of not having to been, Oh, this is the way we’ve always done it. That we can actually look at things differently and use technology in different ways. And so that’s really what we train. And even as a student here as , okay, you have the way it’s always been done, but how would you do it differently? And it lends that intellectual freedom if you will. So that’s actually what attracted me here to come to USF. I had heard that too, and I’m proud to been able to stay here and hopefully train the next generation of physicians to think the same way. Richard Miles: 2:41 You’re doing great things. One of the first people we reached out to when we started the Cade Museum, the Cade Prize was the Paul Sandberg. Dr. Summer Decker: 2:48 Oh yeah, Dr. Sandberg. Richard Miles: 2:49 Yeah. The Florida Inventors Hall of Fame and their attitude was like, sure, we’ll help you. And they didn’t know us from Adam. So we were pretty impressed with that. Obviously it shows at the USF, the whole philosophy there. So Dr. Decker a year ago, I would have had to explain what exactly a nasal swab is and why they’re important. And now I’d say probably just about everyone has had at least one COVID test and we all know what they do, but I do have to admit that I had never heard of a 3D nasal swab until I heard of the one that you all developed. So let’s start by you walking me through why a 3D nasal swab became necessary, how they differ from a conventional swab and how do you make them exactly? Dr. Summer Decker: 3:27 A lot of great questions and I’ll try to keep my answers brief as possible. I think this interview is time so perfectly because this really did start out about a year ago, March 17th was the day we invented the 3D printed nasal swab. And the reason we focused on that is that when the rest of the country was trying to get tested, we were trying to figure out how many people in the us do actually have COVID. The first thing we started noticing was their PPE shortages. There were shortages and supplies and testing kits. And so part of that shortage was a supply chain disruption that was occurring with the nasal swab. That is part of the COVID testing kit. And this is actually one here I have on video. It’s a plastic device that has a little bit of a fuzzy tip on it. The problem, the reason there was a supply chain disruption is that these are actually manufactured in Italy. And as we’ll recall , back for a year ago, Italy had shut down completely. And so we really didn’t have no ability to get extra supplies. The backup site was in China and so China was shut down as well. So this actually presents a situation that we had never been in before. Okay. Now, where do you get your supplies? And so here at USF, I was actually in surgery about to hand off a 3D print . And my team does the 3D printing here at Tampa General and University of South Florida Radiology. And so we are handing in case off in surgery to this trauma patient and the surgeon , when I got a message that we were short nasal supplies. So the nasal swabs , and it started sticking in my head thinking all of the other PPE, those are things that I know other groups can do that nasal swab was of interest to me because there was going to be a lot of diagnostic value to that. That was going to obviously be what tells us if you have COVID or not. So that was going to have to come out of a medical school, a medical center, a hospital. And how do you make up for that supply chain? And I run a 3D lab. So we went back immediately started seeing, could we replicate that using a 3D printer? Richard Miles: 5:21 Yeah , I’m going to reveal my ignorance here, but I thought that nasal swab was really just like a really big Q-tip. So I think it’s probably more complicated than that in order for it to work for COVID because obviously you can’t just use anything. Dr. Summer Decker: 5:33 No so that’s what made it tricky with COVID was that the traditional Q-tip that you’re talking about, even the things that you’ve seen, maybe if you’ve had strep throat or something with the cotton and the wood actually interferes and the test and the PCR test, you’ve probably all heard about the PCR test that’s out there. So we have to use a specific type of swab that doesn’t interfere in that test and cause a complication. And so the current standard of care swab was a plastic kind of a nylon version with this fuzzy blocked tip on the end to be able to capture a sample. So we really got one of the last samples that they had at the hospital, and we started looking at it and we said, could we actually replicate that using a 3D printer? And it was myself, our technical director, Dr. Jonathan Ford, one of our radiologists, Dr. Todd Hazelton , who specializes in the pulmonary airway . So the lungs and the airways and all of us started looking at it and saying, I think we have some ideas. We ran literally down the hall to our colleagues in infectious disease and told them we have an idea. We’re going to try to 3D print you nasal swabs. And we’ve come up with a bunch of designs working with our colleagues here, and some colleagues on main campus. We just put out a call saying, does anyone have any design ideas? And so we were able to narrow it down to three different ones and the infectious disease team brave to the end. They actually tested them on themselves first. What was most comfortable? We wanted to make sure that we could get enough sample for the test, but also make sure it was patient comfortable and patients safe. And so this is actually what we were able to come up with here. I have a printed version of it. And so there’s some ridges on the edge that way we could actually make sure we had enough surface area to capture the sample and also a softer tip on the end so that you don’t damage any of the tissues. I know a lot of people were concerned about why was it a nasal pharyngeal swab because that region and your face is quite far back, you hear them call brain ticklers and all kinds of different things. But that is actually where the first place that COVID really set in. So it was one of the earliest spots that you can detect COVID. And so that was why it was very, very important to work with infectious disease, neurology, and radiology together to come up with the best safest tool, to be able to capture a sample on March 20th, we went to a bench lab testing. She means we went and tested it in the lab. We were able to have viral samples and our neurology team here worked night and day to be able to test it, make sure that it was able to detect a virus, make sure also that it held a virus. We knew it was going to be some time between people’s tests and when it could be actually ran and all of those things that passed by that Monday, we went to clinical trial. Richard Miles: 8:07 Wow . So just to refresh for listeners in case anyone has a bad memory of the last year, March 11th, which is exactly a year ago, we’re recording this on March 11th, 2021. And so March 11 , 2020, I think that was the day when everything shut down the major sports leagues, churches, businesses, restaurants. And so you’re talking really a little over a week after that, where basically you were ready to go with something that you could submit to FDA for approval. Is that about right? Dr. Summer Decker: 8:34 That is right. And the reason we knew we could use this material was in our clinical practice here at the hospital. We make anatomical models. We make surgical cutting guides to really help surgeons plan their cases. They’re really tricky cases. We really do get like the most complex cases that the hospital gets. And so we have materials that have already been cleared by the FDA. We have computers that are FDA cleared for us to be able to do that work in our normal day job, we have printers that are actually medical grade printers that we knew were FDA cleared to be able to do that. And then we had the surgical grade material that had already been cleared. So while standing in surgery, I started thinking, Oh, we can actually kind of jump to the end point if it works, because we’ve already been cleared all these different steps. And so that’s why it was very important to me to use the printer that we used, the materials that we used and also the medical team, because the first things the FDA said was that because it’s a crisis situation has to come from a medical center or licensed device medical manufacturers. And so not just anyone could go out and print, like you’d be at a printer at home. These were going to be diagnostic tools. Meaning they’re going to be used to tell you if you have COVID . So there was a high stakes situation. And so I got so many really sweet emails and stuff from around the world of elementary schools wanting to help print and the local aquariums wanting to help, but it really had to be a medical team doing it for it to be able to be used as a test. And this is what this hospital here, we printed for this hospital for Tampa General Hospital here, Moffitt Cancer Center, the VA hospitals here locally in Tampa Bay. And the reason we were able to do that is because we tested it here. We went through a very large clinical trial. That was a multi-site national clinical trial. And we went and lightspeed to be able to confirm it. We worked directly with Northwell Hhealth, our colleagues up in New York, they were in the middle of the peak of them up there and they had no test kits. So they were wonderful to work with as well as Thomas Jefferson University Medical Center. So all of us working together and that’s, what’s so exciting about this. All of these teams working together as fast as we could just to be able to bring this quickly to the medical teams in their hands. And one of our emergency room physicians has told me we are fighting a war and you gave us the bullets. And basically we were able to tell them if a patient was safe, we were able to keep them safe and keep our hospitals functioning by giving them test kits . Richard Miles: 10:56 Right. That’s an important point you made just as a side note about FDA approval and most people aren’t familiar with, [inaudible] getting approval for new invention and why should they be? It’s a very short chain process, but I think the term of art is predicate technology, right? Where if you’re coming up with a new device of any sort, if all the components or some of the components of that device have already been approved by the FDA, it’s a much less onerous process because really you’re just taking pre-approved materials. You’re putting them together in a new way. And in theory, the FDA should just go. Yep. Yep, yep. You’re good to go. And it sounds like that’s what happened in this case. Dr. Summer Decker: 11:30 So the FDA, we worked with them every single week and not to get too technical. It’s a class one exempt medical device. So they recognize it’s a medical device, but it’s not one that they regulated. So what you just said is exactly what was important. Is it been done on materials that are cleared by us? Is it been done on printers, cleared by us and has it been thoroughly vetted? And that’s why it was really important for us to do a full trial. There were so many people when the news broke that we were doing this, I woke up one night to 4,000 emails from around the world and people wanting their hands on it. And we had to make sure that no matter what pressures that were external, and we knew that people like in New York City had no test kits. We were lucky not to be in that position here at Tampa and just yet, but we were all very stressed about making sure we did our due diligence to make this the best clinical trial follow all of the standards that we knew in our normal practice when it’s not in a crisis situation. So we all felt the pressure to get it done quickly, but we also knew we had to do what we normally would do. Richard Miles: 12:33 If you wake up and theres 4,000 emails waiting for you either you’ve done something great or you’re in really big trouble, right. Whether you’ve won the Nobel Prize or something bad has happened. So Dr. Decker, there was one point you made that I want to come back to. And that’s about, even though the process was relatively simple in terms of assembly, you still have to be able to have a medical grade printer and the supporting materials. Is that something now that is more or less standard at most hospitals or is that really mostly research hospitals are going to have that kind of equipment standing by? Dr. Summer Decker: 13:03 Well , what a great question. So there are well over a hundred 3D printing teams like ours here, and most of the major hospitals that you’ll see out there and I’m lucky to work with all of them. We actually have a little network and within our radiology society, we have a group of us so that we can all communicate about different cases, that we’re seeing new technology, new materials, we have great relationships with industry so that we can see what’s coming out. I really actually have a voice in what comes out. The 3D printers that we use are often the same printers that aeronautics and the film industry, the automotive industry uses, but with different end points and purposes. And so some of the printers that we use have specific medical grade materials, because we’re all trying to get to as close as we can to human tissues. And so that’s why we have really special needs and special interest . And so you’re seeing more and more of these hospitals and teams like ours coming on board because we’re able to help with, as I mentioned, these really complex cases. I mean, if you knew your surgeon was about to walk in, but he or she’s practiced on this 3D heart on the print and can tell you exactly what devices he’s going to use, what size devices, all of that stuff in advance, or able to actually really reduce medical error and medical risk . I can tell you one of our cases with some cranio facial work that we do in our trauma teams here, we’ve been able to take surgeries that are normally 11 hour surgeries and get them down to three hours because we’re handing them a print. That is the exact, what they need to go in there. So not only does that reduce the operating time of that room and the surgeons being there, but for the patient, the patient risk of being under anesthesia, that long the risk of infection and let’s face it, we are all fighting the American medical system in costs. And so cost is something that you want to be able to do as well. So we’re able to reduce the time the cost and the risk of error by using 3D prints of patient’s specific anatomy and being able to create solutions specific to a patient. So cutting guides and things like that. It’s a really nice technology to have in a hospital. And it’s important for it to be in the hospital so that we can move very quickly. I never know who’s coming through the door behind me and what cases about to happen. So. Richard Miles: 15:12 So you have an entire lab and staff that sits around and wonders what you can do to help people with 3D printers, which for a lot of people, that’s your dream job description. So what else do you have in the pipeline? What are you working on now at your lab or that you know of that’s being worked on that could be a breakthrough procedure process say next few years. Dr. Summer Decker: 15:31 So things that we’re working on eminently , we worked directly, as I mentioned with industry to come up with better biomimetic or mimicking tissues. So we are working every single day, including just even today on creating tissue and a printer that feels like that heart, that feels like a face. And we work with a craniofacial facial team here and they can actually cut on the 3D prints and operate. And we work with the children’s hospital here in Tampa and their team over there. And we collaborate with them on that. So getting our clinicians really accurate feeling materials, and I think the end point goal eventually of all 3D printing and this kind of comes with more bio-engineering is being able to print directly into the body, whether we’re being able to use human STEM cells, to be able to do things like that, or be able to use materials that are safe to be embedded into the body. So thinking of my patient with a shattered face, instead of us being able to have to reconstruct all of that manually, we can actually print something in there. And our team holds a number of patents in this area. So that is our goal is to really get it to where we can print and embed into the body and make internal casts. If we break something, we can fix it internally and have that print grow with you, things like that. Richard Miles: 16:45 So what you’re telling me is that within the next 10 years, we’re all gonna look like movie stars. Is that the message? Dr. Summer Decker: 16:49 Can’t you tell? Richard Miles: 16:51 I love it. This is great. So 3D technology or 3D printing, I should say in general, has been portrayed by some as this kind of miracle technology. And essentially you can eventually manufacture anything anywhere all the time. And I suspect the reality is a bit more complicated, is that even feasible? And what are the practical or the physical constraints that limit 3D printing. Dr. Summer Decker: 17:14 We know that we’ve even had 3D printers sent to space so they can use them. And so I can tell you that we’ve worked with teams with the military, that they are on nuclear submarines. So you imagine that we have teams that are underwater somewhere and something breaks on the submarine and they can actually print from the 3D printers. That’s there a file can be sent from back wherever the team is and sent out to that location. So 3D printing is getting more affordable, smaller, there are printers for that, but there’s a big difference. There’s a big jump from the hobbyist type printers. And I hear this all the time, Oh, my kid has one of those are like a toy and that’s fun. And I’m excited to see children get involved in that. Cause that’s where it starts. These printers that we’re playing with are not the same kind of printers. They’re very complex machines. They’re very finicky human type machines. So I think that being able to do this in the future, everyone has them. I think that that is feasible, but it will be a matter of materials and really knowing what works for the solution that you’re trying to be. So you see right now, 3D printed houses happening, but these of course take up a lot of space. So I could see we’ve got 3D printers that are used for eating so you can actually print food and designs. So I think that really what’s exciting to me as I hear new solutions, new applications, all the time, things I would never have thought of. And so that’s what I really love hearing from younger students and kids, because they are thinking things so far ahead of us hearing the innovation come out of that age group. I can’t even imagine what the technology will look like. It’s a miracle now of what we’re being able to do. I really I’ve seen it myself. I’ve seen patients survive things that they had 0% chance of survival. And that’s what makes me happy when I leave work for the day, but to see what’s coming next, I’m excited about that. And I hope that I get to be part of it in some way. Richard Miles: 19:03 So one of the things we like to do on the show is we realize inventors are actually real people. And I’d like to hear a little bit about your background. I know you were raised in Florida up in Jacksonville, right? So tell us what you were like as a kid. Were you a good student? Were you a wild child? What was the deal up in Jacksonville? Dr. Summer Decker: 19:19 Well, I’m sure that my school up there would probably say what they thought about it, but I was actually a very quiet student, very much a reader. I loved science a lot. One of my favorite stories is that my fifth grade teacher actually had us write out what we thought we would end up doing in our lives. And I remember some of my friends saying, I want to be a football player. I want to be a ballerina or something like that. And years later they actually gave me the letter. I wrote myself and it actually said, I loved computers. I loved computer programming and I loved anatomy. And so, yeah , and also I liked forensics at that age. I loved mysteries. I read mystery books, lots of Nancy Drew. And so here’s the little kid, you know, single digits. Are she writing out that somehow I wanted to be able to use computers, anatomy to solve mysteries. And my training is actually in forensics beyond that. So when I look at it now, I think I must have had some early idea that this could come at some point. But when I went to college, my field really didn’t even exist. So I have been back to my high school and to my elementary school and they kind of laugh that I was the quiet, very reserved kid. And so it baffles them, seeing me talking on stages, talking in interviews because I was very quiet, but I love what I do so much that I want to share it. And so, yeah, I was the kid apparently who knew what I was going to end up doing. Richard Miles: 20:40 That’s pretty amazing. Most kids do not. They think they do, and then they get it wrong. It’s interesting. You did go into forensic anthropology and also Spanish. Right. But then you eventually made your way into medical imaging, radiology, 3D printing. Tell us a little bit about that path. Was it an early class that you took as a freshman that kind of awoken those desires to go into the medical field? Or what was that like? Dr. Summer Decker: 21:00 So the area that I went into anthropology is called physical anthropology. And what I really loved about it was basically it was osteology or the study of bones. And so we are able as trained forensic anthropologists and physical anthropologists, physical anthropology covers things from fossils fossil record to ancient historical remains. And I specialized in forensics because I wanted to be able to answer forensic questions, more modern crime type questions. And in the course of that, I actually started working with the medical examiner in Las Vegas because I went to University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and working with them. I started becoming an autopsy technician. And so I assisted there and I talked to the pathologist there and I said, I love this. This is what I want to do. And they’re the ones who encouraged me to go to a medical school. They said, we really would love to see you at a medical school. And the other thing they also did was they told me that in the future, they really could see that autopsies would be done using imaging. And they showed me the news story of a group in Switzerland that was doing virtual autopsies or imaging guided autopsies. So they started making me run all the x-rays. So I started reading x-rays and learning that. And so once I graduated with my master’s in anthropology, I ended up coming to a medical school where they actually had a 3D team. And while I really loved the clinical medicine, I really did love the research side of it too. And I didn’t want to have to choose. And so I’m really excited to be a clinical PhD. And that means that I have our clinical practice and I do what we do with our cases, but I also get to do a lot of research. And so my area of specialty is actually forensic radiology. And I actually worked very closely with the Swiss team that they mentioned to me as a baby student. And so I go over and teach with them and train other pathologists and radiologists how to get in this field. And it’s such an exciting area to be able to combine medical imaging and pathology and 3D and be able to solve crimes and solve who people are. And so we actually have funding right now with the National Institute of Justice here at USF, to be able to help identify people using lumbar scans is so you imagine lots of patients have lower back issues. So you’re seeing just as much as teeth are seeing lumbar scans. And so we’re now able to use those scans to identify people. Richard Miles: 23:15 You’re the sort of person, the TV show is structured their entire show around you’re the character, right? Dr. Decker say, get Dr. here stat, you pal around with this cast of MCIs, I imagine. Dr. Summer Decker: 23:26 Erotically . I was there when CSI was developed . Richard Miles: 23:29 Really. Wow . Dr. Summer Decker: 23:30 I actually remember the day they came and talked to us about it and Las Vegas that there was this TV show. We actually laughed that nobody would ever watch it. We said, well, we are a bunch of science dorks who cares about us. Richard Miles: 23:40 Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Dr. Summer Decker: 23:41 And so some of my cases that I worked on there in Las Vegas appeared CSI. So for awhile , that’s how people knew me. But as much as I love the forensics, being able to help a patient walk out of that hospital, it really does make it worthwhile for me. So I love being able to do both. Richard Miles: 23:57 So this whole career Dr. Decker is really just a way to get to Hollywood, right? You can just, Dr. Summer Decker: 24:02 As I sit here in a room that I’m normally in the dark, but you know what I actually do tell the students is the software that we use, the tools that we use are the ones Hollywood uses. Um , one of my people worked with me, went off to work for Pixar. And so a lot of it is the same thing. So we actually do go to Pixar movies and see like, Oh, we’ll be able to use that. And so there’s actually in the history of Pixar, a radiologist was actually involved in that because it’s all image analysis. So when I was in college, I had the opportunity to National Geographic Show. And I remember thinking that was the pinnacle of my career because I really loved documentary film growing up. And now I use the same tools that they use for that to be able to answer medical problems. And so I tell my students here at the medical school, I play video games for a living. It just happened to be medical ones. Richard Miles: 24:47 One pointless anecdote about National Geographic, one of our daughters intern there for awhile . And she said that they had two popular topics that just always sold way better than other ones. One was anything about big cats and anything about Alaska. They didn’t issue an Alaskan big cats. And it just like broke all records. Dr. Summer Decker: 25:03 Ours was on mummies , but again, using medical imaging to work with the dead and being able to answer questions, using the tools that we have for our clinical patients, then looking at the ancient remains or even historical remains. It’s what we should be able to do to progress the field and understand how things have worked even in mummies . Richard Miles: 25:21 So one final question, one of the corollaries of being successful as you have been certainly in the last year, but really your whole career is that people start asking you for advice. So tell us what sort of questions do you get say from your younger researchers or students and what kind of advice do you give? Dr. Summer Decker: 25:36 Well, thank you for saying I’m successful. I’m one of those people that constantly doubts. And I think that’s why I keep pushing and pushing. And that’s actually probably what I tell my students when I came through school and you kind of touched on this, my field didn’t exist yet. And so I had people think I was crazy. Why do you like computers? Why do you like all of these things? And I don’t know why, but I just really loved that. And so when I tell students, you don’t know, you’re so young, you don’t know yet what is going to even be possible. So don’t get discouraged because I was told by so many people you’re not good enough and that you’re not smart enough for that mathematics or whatever. It came a little bit harder to me. I had to work hard for it. And so if it is something that you’re passionate about that you love, don’t give up on it because you never know how you might be able to help a pandemic because you had that vision, that idea, we know that our swabs over 70 million people have had them and 50 something countries. And if I had listened to the people who told me that I can never do this, this is crazy. That’s not really a field then that wouldn’t have happened. And what I tell people is honestly, stick with your passions just because it doesn’t exist now does not mean it won’t. And maybe you’re the one that’s actually makes that field. And so when I see people around me that are like-minded, it’s like finding your high, if your bees. And so being able to be around friends and colleagues that thought the same thing. Now , we were all kind of crazy. Well, now we weren’t so crazy anymore. And so that’s what I tell students. When you walk into medical school, a lot of times people think, Oh , I’ll never do that reading again. Or I’ll never do that video game again, or I’m supposed to be serious. Now don’t give up on those things. If you’re passionate about it, because you never know how that’s going to come back and help other people. So that’s what I tell people. Richard Miles: 27:22 Well, great advice. And certainly you’ve done the state of Florida proud Jacksonville girl, ending up as a medical researcher in Tampa. So certainly have represented the state well, but we wish you the best of luck. Thank you very much for the work that you’ve done and helping us get out of this pandemic as hopefully we soon will be and look forward to new and exciting things coming out of your lab. Dr. Summer Decker: 27:41 And I appreciate that. Thank you. And I’ll tell the team that too. I’m just one of many thousands. I know, but. Richard Miles: 27:47 Somebody’s got to take the credit, right? I wish it was them. Dr. Becker. Thank you very much for being on Radio Cade. Thank you so much. Outro: 27:56 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy columns and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Making virus testing easy, or at least easier, will enable companies and organizations to reopen faster as we enter the beginning of the post-corona era. Dr. Timothy Garrett, the Chief of Experimental Pathology at the University of Florida, has developed a test that can detect multiple viruses, including variants, from a single sample. Better yet, this can be done in a portable lab for remote testing, potentially making it widely available in many communities. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade and podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles : 0:39 Making virus testing easy, or at least easier will enable companies and organizations to reopen faster. As we enter the beginning of the post Corona era. Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host, Richard Miles. And today I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Timothy Garrett an Associate Professor and the Chief of Experimental Pathology at the University of Florida, as well as the founder of three companies, including Juno Metabolomics where he remains the Chief Scientific Officer. And he’s also a friend. So welcome to Radio Cade Tim . Dr. Timothy Garrett: 1:06 I’m glad to be here. Thanks. Richard Miles : 1:07 So Tim, I usually save the toughest question for last, but I’m going to cut straight to the chase. How does a guy who did his undergrad, the University of Georgia and up at the University of Florida? Cause I thought we had rules preventing that from happening. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 1:18 There are a lot of social roles involved in that. But the short answer is that at the University of Georgia, I got introduced to a technique that allowed me the new area of study. And when I came to Florida and one of the top people in my field was here. And so I decided once I got in and this was a great place to go and we liked the warm weather and living in Florida, was attracted to that. So somehow they let a Georgia bulldog and to the University of Florida. And now I guess you can call me a true bull gator because I am a bulldog and a gator. Richard Miles : 1:46 Well, I hope I haven’t blown your secret and they rescind your tenure or something. Anyway, we’ll talk a little bit about your background later, but let’s start out by talking about what it is that you have actually developed and why we invited you on the show. And so you’re an analytical chemist and you basically specialize in finding stuff and by stuff, I mean small molecules and where they come from. And if I understand correctly, you have developed a test that can detect multiple viruses, including variants from a single sample and better yet. This can be done in a portable lab for remote testing. So has obvious implications for the era that we’re in right now, which is sort of coming out of the coronavirus . But first of all, did I get that completely wrong? Cause you know, I got my degrees in international relations, which should scare you. So tell us what this test does, how it works and why it matters. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 2:30 You got it almost a hundred percent correct. So good job. It’s a test that basically allows you to look at saliva, right? Isolate out instead of small molecules, isolate out proteins that are specific to individual viruses and that includes individual variants as well. And then allow you to measure those individual proteins in a portal style format. So basically in general, it’s a fairly simple process. We isolate the proteins and then we measure those proteins using mass spectrometry. And the cool part about the reason mass spec is important for this is it’s the, of the masses. Meaning that how much the proteins way allows us to really distinguish which protein it is and which virus it comes from. And that includes SARS coronavirus and the original one, as well as SARS cov two. And in Florida, we care about mosquito borne illnesses like Dengue and Zika and other ones. And it allows us also to see those unique patterns that allows us to really differentiate, which is which, and so the really cool part is that from that simple saliva sample, we’ll be able to diagnose what virus the person is infected with. And that would then allow us to really start treatment very much quicker rather than waiting for PCR, which would really only capture one specific virus at a time rather than what we could do is really just search the library and find out what’s there. Richard Miles : 3:38 So if I get this correct, Tim is the standard of care. Now that in order to really identify whether someone’s got virus A or B or C or D do they have to have blood drawn and then that blood goes off to a lab and then that you get a result back a couple of days later, is that the current state of affairs or is a real breakthrough here, this one, the saliva test part of it rather than the blood. And is there a speed element involved ? Dr. Timothy Garrett: 4:00 So you can test primarily as nasal swabs or saliva. Most of it was done with nasal swabs until we started thinking about saliva better. One of the key parts with current diagnostics is the use of PCR, polymerase chain reaction methods that are designed to target one specific part of a virus to amplify that signal, to really give you a really strong response. That means that you’re limited to whichever piece of the DNA or RNA that you start with to amplify, which is very specific. And so you need multiple tests for that. The real aspect of this is basically being able to look at patterns. So using pattern recognition approaches to save this as one virus versus another. And that really equates to speed. So you can take 30 minutes to prepare the sample and be able to measure all the viruses versus what you might have to do in a normal clinical lab, which is conducted 30 to 40 to an hour long run to identify a single type of virus. Richard Miles : 4:50 If we compare this to say like a lot of people have done already, like the saliva based coronavirus tests, but in that example, right, if I think I’ve got coronavirus, I ordered a test , they analyze it. If I had another virus, would that test pick it up or not? Dr. Timothy Garrett: 5:04 No, it would . It would not. So if you, instead of having coronavirus had the Zika or Dengue Fever, it would not capture that. And those have similar symptoms in some ways, headache and runny noses and those kinds of similar clinical symptoms, but you wouldn’t know. Richard Miles : 5:19 So with your process, somebody could walk into the doctor’s say I feel lousy. I don’t know what I have. They take a saliva sample and then you could potentially look at a whole bunch of different potential virus. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 5:27 That’s correct. Yeah. And we’ve started small on purpose to build libraries in a small way, but then it would expand exponentially really. And the cool part about it is it because it’s a library of information it’s easily transmitted to individuals who have access to measuring in this way, which is part of the reason why it makes it very portable because it’s really just querying a new database of information. And that database then provides the diagnostics. Richard Miles : 5:50 So it’s really in that back analysis, the saliva, right ? Cause this is an Elizabeth Holmes type thing, right. Where you’re just taking one drop or something and saying, Oh, there are 87 different things wrong with you right? Dr. Timothy Garrett: 6:01 Definitely not that, glad that you brought that up. That’s one of the biggest concerns with developing a test is following that route. But we look at small steps to make sure it works, with just one virus at a time. Right. And then once you do that, then you say, okay, now we can keep building upon that. And eventually, yeah, you could do hundreds maybe, but that would be way down the road. This sort of translates what we do for bacteriology right now in the clinical world for bacterial identification, we use similar approaches to measure patterns, to help us understand which bacteria you might have an infection. And so that’s running a sample and searching against the database to say, yes, we think you have this infection versus this one. Richard Miles : 6:35 Excuse me, for asking basic questions. But is there any difference from a practical standpoint or an analytical standpoint when you’re working with saliva versus blood? I mean, imagine working with slides a lot easier, right? Probably the way you handle it and care for it and store it is I’m guessing magnitudes easier than handling blood. But in terms of the information that you get from saliva, are you just as good or is it one notch down from what you could get from blood available? Dr. Timothy Garrett: 6:59 Saliva is just as good. And I had the same feeling you had initially when we started working with saliva, that it should be easier. But in fact, it’s 10 times harder. Richard Miles : 7:06 Really ok, shows you what I know. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 7:09 I didn’t either as an analytical chemist, it’s sort of a fairly new medium for me, blood we know a lot about, and we have a lot of processes in place to deal with how to process it and how to get rid of different components. Saliva has higher variability from individual to individual, meaning that how much water you drink might affect the concentration of saliva. It has so many enzymes that are designed to break down food that those enzymes can get in the way of measuring other species that , that aren’t enzymes like viruses that are present. And it still has the same infectious capability as blood does. And so if you get contact with saliva with viruses , so could have possibility of getting an infection. So from a perspective of trying to measure species that are in really, really low concentrations, the amount of other stuff present, causes a problem, Oh, and the other thing in our saliva, we have bacteria, right? The normal bacteria that live in a part of our gums in our mouth that are part of a healthy, as well as unhealthy mouth that are also confounding some of these issues. So you have sort of like a weird experiment that happens in our mouth every day when we eat. Richard Miles : 8:08 But from a patient perspective, it’s much easier obviously, right? Because nobody’s faints from giving a vial of saliva where a lot of people are still nervous and myself included about getting their blood drawn. They really don’t like it. So at least from the patient, it’s probably better. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 8:21 That’s a hundred percent true and it is easier to collect, right? Cause someone could collect a sample and drop it off rather than having to have a blood draw a thousand times much easier for individuals. And you can even send them a kit. Richard Miles : 8:31 They sent it to you in the mail and then they just walk you through it online. Exactly what to do. There’s obviously been a lot of attention the last year on fighting the coronavirus and almost exactly a year later, even as we’re doing this interview about roughly 20% of the population, a little bit less has received at least one shot. And it’s amazing. That is, I think some people have missed the breakthrough or maybe don’t fully understand in the underlying technology of messenger RNA as a process to make the vaccine and what that could mean in treating other diseases. I know that’s not exactly your field, but is that as big a deal as I’ve read or is that just hype? Dr. Timothy Garrett: 9:07 It is a big deal. Not only because of the speed at which it was developed, but the technology that’s in there and it opens up the idea of changing how we do vaccines in the future, right? So normally we have a live virus, right? That’s how you get the flu. The live virus has given you give a little bit of it that tells your body to react to the flu. And then when you get a real stimulus of the flu, you’re immune to that, that’s has some issues, right? In terms of growing it in terms of giving it to individuals, this one tricks your body in the same way to have an immune response, but uses messenger RNA as that trick. Right? And so now you can think about developing a flu virus. That’s not a live attenuated flu virus that could be used to in the same manner and then follow the same procedures and also potentially being a lot broader spectrum coverage then we get with the current life virus where we have to guess, which is going to be the biggest outbreak this year. So to me, as a scientist, looking at it, people worry about the speed of development. They have to sort of understand that all of that speed, we still went through all of the same clinical trials. It just went a lot faster because we had the money upfront to get people in the trials and do this trial as much faster than it would normally take. But the science behind it to me is exciting. And the next four to five years and how this is used is going to be another phase of neurology. Richard Miles : 10:16 Right. And if I understand it basically with the messenger RNA, you can basically trick or command your body, whatever verb you want to use into producing almost any protein that you want it to produce to fight off or handle a lot of different types of pathologies or diseases. And that is what has got researchers super excited. Yeah . Dr. Timothy Garrett: 10:32 Yeah. Some of the concerns was keeping it stable, right. And that’s the only real concern right now is making sure that it doesn’t fall apart or degrade, which is why you have to keep it that cold temperatures, but we’re going to solve that and Johnson and Johnson’s one came out and that somewhat solves that issue without worrying about cold storage. But yeah, and it’s tricking your body using a way to really hone in on a specific response is really intriguing. How we then grow from here is something, I think the scientific community is really gonna learn a lot from in this phase, but also in controlling other viruses. Richard Miles : 11:02 Yeah. As bad as this year has been for coronavirus . And certainly other people that have died has been a tragedy. Ironically, historians may look back on 2020, 2021 as making this huge breakthrough in treating, not just coronavirus, but other types of diseases and viruses that even five years ago or 10 years ago, if we’d been talking about trying to develop a vaccine inside of basically a year, less than a year or 10 months, that just would have been on the level almost of scifi . Dr. Timothy Garrett: 11:26 Exactly. And then also scaling it up and then manufacturing, not just developing but manufacturing yet at a high enough level to get people, even if we’re at 20%. Now we really only started vaccinating people in late December, January, right? Richard Miles : 11:38 The first few weeks is pretty chaotic if not incompetent. And so really a ton of the vaccination have taken place and probably the last four weeks or four to five weeks. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 11:46 Exactly. And you’ve mentioned something about the scientific part of it to me as a scientist, when the world sort of stuff went on different lockdowns, depending on what state you were in, the scientific community , started digging through the science really fast. We had some more time on our hands because we couldn’t sit in our labs and do experiments. So we started looking back at old papers that maybe we had to study before. And so what we saw then after that two month hiatus was after that you saw an explosion of scientific discovery, which to me was really fascinating to see. And if you look at the bio archives where people publish early work, you can sort of see how many COVID related publications came out from people who aren’t even studying viruses in the past that sort of got interested in thinking about a problem in a new way. So the scientific discovery, I think from this is one of the very interesting things to see, and then what comes all through this and what generation of scientists tackle this in a different way . Richard Miles : 12:34 That’s a great point. So let’s move from science to the world of business, like a fair number of researchers you’ve taken several of your technologies or research that you’ve done informed several companies and every story is different. So let’s hear yours, what, or who gave you the idea of commercializing some of the technologies and how are these companies doing? Dr. Timothy Garrett: 12:54 Commercializing really comes from me within and from other people that I’ve learned from the idea of taking something that you develop as a scientist and then write a paper on, but then also deciding how can we help communities with this? How can we design something that not only has good scientific background, but also can be implemented somewhere that helps us grow it as a community. Part of that, of course, the Cade. Robert Cade was a key part to see a scientist who’s working at the University of Florida, right? Developing a product that then becomes something that people really use and need in many different ways, whether there’s a , for normal healthcare , but also just for sports management. So seeing another scientist go that route is a way that I’ve really enjoyed trying to solve the right problems in a way that balances being an academic, but also trying to be an entrepreneur. And so with this new company that we’re in is only a couple of years old. It’s still growing as a company with not just the virus. In fact, we didn’t start it as a virus based company. It started as an analytical testing company for metabolomic measurements and performance, right? Measuring performance enhancement and understanding that how we can improve individual’s recovery and those kinds of components that go into management of athletes. And then when we couldn’t do that research for a little while, we moved on to thinking in new ways and how we could use the knowledge of the company to help and the virus space. And my background is a scientist. Richard Miles : 14:08 So Tim, sometimes as you well know, the world of basic research and academia is quite different than the world of startups and entrepreneurs and venture capital firms and so on. How did you negotiate that transition? And what do you notice in terms of those two different universes? Dr. Timothy Garrett: 14:23 So speed is one of the first things academic research is fairly slow and partly because you have to find funding right through different areas. And so you ended up having a much slower pace. And when you switched to a corporate or company based work, do you have to be much faster in terms of implementing something and coming up with a solution faster and you can’t necessarily do that without compromising sort of the science behind it. So part of it is making sure you have the right funding in place fast enough to hire the right people, to help those right problems, putting my academic hat on. It’s harder to make that fast paced translation for me. And so relying on others that we have in the company to help move that at the right pace is really what I’ve found to be the most beneficial part. Because training me is sort of like training a dog, a new trick, right? It takes a lot longer to train something new. You don’t end up keeping your old tricks. So really finding new people is one of the key benefits to me. Richard Miles : 15:13 The Cade Prize competition, we talk to a lot of folks who have done exactly what you’re doing in terms of moving their technologies to market. And several them have commented that the first shock was mostly in academia. And I know I’m generalizing here, but particularly in research, you work on research for a long time. You make a breakthrough, you publish it. You might go to a couple of conferences and talk about research and people applaud and go great job. And then you’re off to the next research, right? You’re sort of done, you’ve published your paper. And they’re shock was when they take this to market and investors go, yeah, that’s a great idea, but who’s going to buy it. Who’s going to pay for it. How fast can you produce it? So they all acknowledged the idea is great and that’s not really the benchmark anymore. Good idea versus bad idea. It’s good idea that can also be manufactured and sold. And that was a cold bath for some of these researchers. Who’ve never had to deal with that before. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 15:59 Yeah. And you’re sort of right. We do the research. We eventually published a paper on it and we talk about it. And then we think about the next research project. Can we sort of encapsulate that this is a publication from the work and go read it and we might often stop there versus yeah. The industry part is, okay, now this is a cool idea, but is there a market for it, right? Or is there protection for it, right. Maybe that maybe you don’t have protection. And we run in this space in biomarker discovery all the time. You find a new biomarker, they’re very difficult to protect. And so when you think about a company, you can still use a biomarker, but you might use it to develop the technology to measure that biomarker. And that would be then how you might translate a cut to make a company successful, putting that mindset on. It’s like, okay, this result has a high percentage of being successful in terms of diagnostic of patients. So how can we then translate that to making a product that works and that makes money and that also provides value to the community. Right? And so one of the hardest parts for me is really that part of taking that research idea and really thinking about what it would look like in the marketplace and not all of them will work that way. And you have to sort of bounce those ideas off of colleagues or friends or people that you think about to say, is there really, truly a market for this? And then find investors that might be interested in sort of helping you translate that to something that they might envision as a different route to it. So I like the publication part, but I also really like trying to see if it really will make a dent. And to me, healthcare is a big part. So healthcare. Richard Miles : 17:17 That’s what a lot of people say is it gratifying as a recognition is from colleagues in the academic world. It’s knowing that the technology, the research is actually helping people. And the only way that really happens is getting it to market right where it can help a bunch of people. And that’s really provides a lot of satisfaction, Dr. Timothy Garrett: 17:33 Right? And often our studies are on cells or on other kinds of systems and not on say human samples. And so really you have to see how it works testing in humans to understand really, will it have any impact in the same way that it has in normal laboratory setting . Richard Miles : 17:46 So Tim, at the beginning of the show, we talked about you did your undergraduate University of Georgia, but you actually spent your childhood in the Midwest and your dad also was a chemistry professor or a researcher and a lead scientist at Owen Corning’s fiberglass. But when you entered college, you told me you wanted to be an English major, but then chemistry found you. So first of all, what happened? And secondly, was there any evidence when you were a kid running around with four siblings, right. That you would be a top scientific researcher, did that just sort of come out of the blue? Dr. Timothy Garrett: 18:15 If you ask my siblings, there’s no evidence whatsoever. Richard Miles : 18:18 They’re still looking for it. Right. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 18:20 They’re looking for it. Yes. And I’m the youngest of four. I’m a twin though. So I’m the youngest by three minutes. And so as a kid, I struggled in the beginning with math. I didn’t do great about in middle school. I didn’t really come into understanding what I was really good at it until college. So I sort of was just a normal high school kid, did the normal stuff and I have good grades here and there. I did like science and I knew stuff for my dad. I got to visit his company and see sort of stuff he did, but I didn’t really quite understand it. And so you’re right. That chemistry really did find me. And the only reason is because I had to take chemistry because at Georgia, I was in college of liberal arts and sciences. And so I have to have a scientific program. So I was like, Nope, chemistry. I’ll take that. I can ask my dad any questions if I don’t understand them. And then I took it and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t think I would enjoy it. So then I had to take another general chemistry. So I took that and then I still was an English major or thinking about being English, which doesn’t make any sense to me nowadays. But then it made a lot of sense, but I do like reading and I do like writing, but it really wasn’t until I took organic chemistry. And a lot of people will tell you that organic chemistry is sort of cutoff points for both people, whether you like it or not. And so I took organic chemistry and I loved it. I could visualize the molecules in my head. I could really make connections that I didn’t think I could ever see before. And so it really was connecting what was on paper, putting that three-dimensional figure in your head of a molecule coming together or the shape of a symbol , like cyclohexane ring, whatever. And that part was so fascinating to me that you could then see what it looks like, but then also make reactions happen. Right. And then make products from that. And then the last part was doing research in college. Right. And then figuring out like it take one a, the size of a needle, a sample type, measuring what’s in that. And you can measure what was in that. If you just look at your pencil for a second, that’s smaller than that we can measure. Right. And that’s the , wow. You can really measure that amount of material and come up with an answer was pretty fascinating. Richard Miles : 20:08 I’m guessing that your dad was quite pleased, right? His , his kid goes off to college to be an English major and comes back as a chemistry researcher. Right. He must have been quite happy about that. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 20:17 He was happy, but he kept pushing me into polymer chemistry because that’s what he did. And so he wanted me to go that route cause he didn’t really quite understand what I could do with analytical chemistry right away. But definitely he was encouraging a hundred percent of the way. And I learned a lot about how to do science or how to think about science from him and got to sort of bounce ideas off of him because he could understand what I was trying to go through in grad school and trying to understand different parts of it. He could really help me think through scientific discovery and because of his background, even though it wasn’t the same field, he still sort of had that training and knowledge to help a lot on the way. Richard Miles : 20:48 Right. Well, it’s funny you had the opposite experience that I did. I was actually fairly good at math in high school. And then I got to college. I took my first advanced calculus class and just completely wiped me out. And I said to hell with that, I’m doing international relations. So, but , um, but my daughter became a math major. So it skipped a generation. So maybe your kids will be English majors Tim, theres still hope. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 21:07 There’s hope that they could be there. That’s that would be awesome. Yes. I totally support them whatever they like to do. Richard Miles : 21:12 So Tim, you also told me earlier that research is hard and that experiments don’t always work out. And one fascinating thing is you said, what you have found at least is at rest is really important. So can you expand a little bit about that? Because I get lots of rest. But I’m not working on any pathbreaking technology. So I feel like I’m doing something wrong. So what is your secret? Dr. Timothy Garrett: 21:31 Well, we sometimes get stuck thinking the same way all the time. I’m thinking about the problem , the same way all the time, because we either have our mindset that this is the way I’ve done it in the past. And it always works this way. And I continue to do that and we reach a part in research when you don’t know what the next experiment is, or you don’t know what the result means. If you keep trying to plug away and trying to just run experiment after experiment, you’re not going to necessarily come up with the answer. Right. But I look at it as is, you have to forget about it . And the reason you have to kind of forget about it is if you read a science fiction novel, or if you read something unrelated to your field, that you might get this ding that comes off that says, wow, that’s cool. And think about it in a different perspective. It’s like, well, I’ve been thinking about it this way for the last six months. What if I just do this? And you might just get a clear mind and my wife is an artist, right? And so part of that comes from seeing an artist think and seeing how an artist takes a lot of time and energy to go through many things in their head draws, sketches, and then trying to really balance between science and art to me has been part of that rest. Right? So turning off my scientific mind and just thinking non scientifically for awhile helps me think about new ways. And that then might be the next experiment that you designed, that you could then write it out on a napkin because then all of a sudden you think this would be a cool experiment to do, and I need to do it. And then you still have the knowledge to know how to do the experiment, but you’re just started from a different perspective. Richard Miles : 22:47 I understand that rest of you is a relative term. You have a young kids at home and a creative, energetic wife who I feel your pain. She’s usually volunteering you to do things to him that maybe you don’t want to do, but you’ve got to do them anyway. But it’s interesting what you say because a lot of brain researchers have said that there’s creative sparks come in fact, when we do relax our brains , so to speak and we take our hyper-focus off of our, our subject area and we stand back a little bit. And then like you said, as an artist maybe stands back from their painting, they’re able to see something there that they didn’t see before. So you’re definitely onto something. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 23:18 Yeah. I’m and to me it’s been the most beneficial parts are just taking a walk right outside and just looking at nature and not really contemplating anything, except it’s talking with a friend or just looking at the birds or here in Florida, looking at the alligators and then you see something or it reminds calm enough to see through the problem. And I think that calming part is really what we sort of miss. Sometimes this high stress high speed environment, you have to have a calming force to really put pieces together. And I deal with data sets that have thousands to hundreds of thousands of features, right. Or signals. And we have to try and make sense of those and that you can’t physically do that without having a relaxed kind of approach to it. Richard Miles : 23:57 Very well said, Tim, and really have enjoyed having you on the show, wish you the best of luck with your research and also your companies. And look forward to having you back for an update. Dr. Timothy Garrett: 24:06 Thank you very much for being a part of this. This is a great thing, and I’m glad that we could spend the time together talking. Richard Miles : 24:11 Great. Thanks Tim. Outro: 24:13 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

The current COVID-19 tests are not perfectly accurate, which causes several issues with managing the viral spread. Epidemiological data suggests that 1/4 of all COVID-19 transmission occurs through asymptomatic carriers, up to 14 days before any symptoms are shown. Dr. Vanaja Ragavan, Founder, President, and CEO of Aviana Molecular Technologies, LLC has developed a more accurate test that can lead to earlier detection as well as providing information on the viral load. Wide-scale testing and earlier detection can make a significant difference in achieving positive outcomes and saving lives. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio: 0:39 Welcome to another edition of Radio Cade . I’m your host, James Di Virgilio. And today we’re going to talk about detecting Corona virus . All of us are familiar with the variety of tests that are being done right now, but none of them are able to detect very important things like viral load, which makes them less accurate than we’d like to see. My guest today is Dr. Vanaja Ragavan. She is the founder, president and CEO of Aviana Molecular technologies, and she’s working on something that could be very impactful for the world’s fight against coronavirus . Dr. Ragavan welcome to the show. Vanaja Ragavan: 1:13 Thank you, James. James Di Virgilio: 1:14 Now tell us what it is you’re working on and how it’s going to help us in the fight against curving Corona virus . Vanaja Ragavan: 1:20 Thank you so much for having us on. We are developing a chip based diagnostic system to be able to detect Corona virus so we can detect a lot of different biomarkers and viruses and bacteria. However, at this point, we’ve pivoted to be able to use our technology to detect COVID-19. And the nature of our technology is based on a radio frequency chip, and it works like a radar system, really in a small little space. One of the advantages of our system is it’s called a mass detector it detects the amount of mass that’s sitting on top of the chip. And because of that, we have the unique ability to be able to actually distinguish the presence of the whole virus or would be called the infectious virus in a clinical sample. So most of the other diagnostic tests detect either the internal makeup of the virus called the RNA, the genetic makeup of the virus, or it detects one of the many proteins that are found in the virus. Most of them actually detect a protein that’s found inside the virus called a nuclear capsid protein. And we know a couple of tests that look at the spike protein as a detection, but those are small proteins compared to the whole virus. And although they can be good surrogates, they don’t give you a direct analysis of the infectious nature of the virus in a particular person or in a group of people or in a population. So we can do that. We can do that at an individual level and because our system is based on cellular communication, it’s in our DNA, so to speak. To be part of the cellular communication internet, we can actually add further data on tracing and population-based studies. So we’re hoping that this technology can help us at this time in detecting the whole virus, the infectious virus, and give us some idea of the viral load. And we’re working towards all that data. James Di Virgilio: 3:14 Now, what is the advantage of having a more accurate coronavirus tests right now? It seems like a lot of people would think, well, look, I go get tested . I’m positive or I’m negative. What’s the advantage of your solution? Vanaja Ragavan: 3:26 Well, let’s take an example. For instance, if one of our technicians actually developed coronavirus COVID 19 , and we wanted to know when she can come back to work, the current tests tell us whether this virus is present or a part of the virus is present, but it doesn’t tell us is she going to be able to transmit this virus? Because we don’t know the actual viral count that she possesses. So if we can detect that, we can have a much more accurate picture of when she has the virus and when she’s free of the virus. So that’s the position that we can bring to the marketplace. There are studies that have shown, for instance, at the RNA can hang around for several days, two weeks after the infection is no longer present, and those are correlated with actual culture of the virus, but that takes several days. And so if you rely purely on the RNA test , sometimes it can take a while to clear the body to clear it, but we can have a much more precise tool that tells us whether the person still has an infection or free of an infection. The other thing is that it’s been shown that this virus can live in the presence of the vaccine. It just doesn’t cause a severe disease. So shedding of the virus in somebody who has been vaccinated is still an open question and we believe we can add some real value in that particular circumstance too . James Di Virgilio: 4:45 So now if you imagine you mentioned an employer, but perhaps a sports team, which has gotten a lot of press in the past year, they have 20 athletes on the team and they’re testing. And right now, if you test positive, you might be out for 14 days or they’ll test you every three days. Uh, but like you mentioned, you could keep showing positive test results and potentially not really have a viral load at all, or the opposite is also true. So in your solution, you would get a much more accurate result where you could then confidently send the employee or the athlete back into action, knowing this person is fine because of the heightened accuracy right? Vanaja Ragavan: 5:17 Exactly. And we’re sort of focusing a lot on openings , um , colleges and doing the studies on students because they know if somebody’s positive, they quarantine for 14 days. And that’s pretty awful for a student on a campus to stay within their rooms for 14 days. So we can give a much precise estimate of when that person is no longer infectious or doesn’t need to be quarantined. So we can add some precision to this very qualitative world. And that’s kind of what we’re hoping to do. James Di Virgilio: 5:46 Yeah. And that would obviously be welcome, I think for everyone and anyone who’s had to quarantine, as you mentioned, that kind of isolating experience, is this something that we can use now? Can I go use your test, your solution right now? Vanaja Ragavan: 5:59 No, we’re not quite ready yet. We’re collecting all the data for the FTS approvals . So we’re working with some pretty important consultants and so on. So when we get the data together, we’ll be happy to let you know James and the Cade Museum. And we’ll be happy to let you know when we launch. James Di Virgilio: 6:16 Do you have any loose timeframe. I know you can’t know for sure, obviously, but do you have any ideas like this year, next year, longer? Vanaja Ragavan: 6:23 Well, we’re hoping to do it by the end of this quarter or the beginning of next quarter. We’ve solved a lot of the problems with the technology had, we’ve had some difficult situations. For instance, I need to measure the virus viral load, and it’s been really hard for us to get the inactive virus. Most of the methods used for inactivating the virus that we’ve tested, we’ve tested about six or seven of them seems to destroy the ability of the virus to bind to our system. It destroys the spike protein, which is kind of what we’re binding to our system. So it’s been a really difficult task to try and find this nag , the virus mostly because the whole aspect of the scientific basis of this virus is still in its early stages. And so we’re trying to work around that system with our consultants. James Di Virgilio: 7:09 And at this point, given the science, you’ve done the research you’ve done. It sounds like you feel pretty confident that this solution, not only will it be released rather soon, but that you’ve gotten over the hurdle of proving the concept, right? It sounds like you feel like the concepts proven this is doing what you think is going to do. Now you’re at the one yard line about to kind of finish the task. Is that about an accurate summation of where you are ? Vanaja Ragavan: 7:29 Yes, I think so. We’ve done a lot of studies on clinical samples and we’ve shown we can detect the virus. We’re going to dig into it further and do some more science on it because I think we want to be a very scientifically based company. And we’re working with some of our investigators to determine the correlation between our tests and actual viral culture in the lab. And so we’re going to be continuing to do some of that work for both publication and for the scientific community and the medical community. But our basic test shows that we are detecting the virus. And the way we know that is because our system, the one we’re using is based on an acoustic wave, detects a mass about the size of the virus. And we have not been able to detect the protein we’re detecting the virus. So we’re pretty shored and similar systems have been used to detect viruses successfully. And that’s in the public literature too. James Di Virgilio: 8:22 And it’s your knowledge at this point in time, right? You would be the only, let’s say it’s a quarter now or two quarters from now in 2021, you would be the only solution out there that would be doing what you’re doing. Vanaja Ragavan: 8:33 We believe so, James, you know, it’s really hard to know exactly who’s working on what, but we believe we are. Yes. James Di Virgilio: 8:39 That’s exciting stuff. Now let’s take ourselves into the future. And imagine now that this is actually available and I’m able to use it, what does it look like? Am I going to my local doctor? Am I going to like a pharmacy nearby? Am I using it myself? How is this going to work in the real world once it’s launched? Vanaja Ragavan: 8:53 Well , as I mentioned earlier, the first aspect of it will be in a laboratory, but while most of the other studies take many hours to a day to get the results back, once we get the sample into the laboratory, we can determine it within 15, 20 minutes and the results can be sent back electronically to your physician or your carrier. What we’ll do initially is how the nasal swab that’s done sent to a laboratory that can do the testing and send the results back to the provider or the patient. But eventually what we want to do is to do the clinical studies and the technical studies that are needed to become what’s called a clear waiver. And that allows us to take our system to the point of care. And so the test can be done and the patient notified within 15, 20 minutes. So that’s our ultimate aim though. That’ll be our second step in the process because according to the FDA, we need to do some more studies to show that the technology can be worked at a point of care. So we have to do some added studies and we’ll be doing that as soon as we launched the laboratory system, consultants have told us that it’s better to do it in a two-step process, even with the FDA. So the FDA gets familiar with our technology, and then we do the clear waiver studies afterwards. So they recommended a two-step process. James Di Virgilio: 10:11 Okay. So right now it’s July, we’re imagining, and I go into my doctor’s office and this is just like a normal test. They’d give me and say, we’re going to run some tests. We’ll send it to the lab. We’ll give you your results. But in the next step, really the one I’m sure you’re most excited about is going to be the one where I go in my doctor or my physician’s assistant, or perhaps down the road, even someone else that has maybe no medical training, if we’re getting weighed on the road is able to immediately give me the test and then tell me my results before I even leave. Right. 10 or 15 minutes later. Vanaja Ragavan: 10:39 That’s our aim. Yes. James Di Virgilio: 10:41 Okay. So now that we have the idea, which obviously is very exciting, that’s something that I think we can all imagine would really help with getting a more accurate way to deal with Corona virus. But let’s dig a little bit into how you got here, the origin story. So you went to Harvard, you went to NYU, you’re a physician. How did you wind up spending five or six years or even 10 years? I think in your case researching this idea, how did that transition go from practicing physician to entrepreneur innovator, and then someone who’s on this path? Vanaja Ragavan: 11:09 It’s an interesting life journey. So after I finished medical school and residency and fellowship and all that stuff, I actually ended up working at the food and drug administration. As a medical officer its completely serendipitous. I went to DC, I needed a job and I found one at the FDA and then ended up just loving the work that I did. I have a lot of respect for the FDA. I think they are a highly scientific organization that provide probably some of the best reviews in the world on drugs and devices and attracted they’re so well respected that many countries around the world base their entire approval process on the FDA. So it was really thrilling to be there, to be able to help large groups of people rather than an individual patient. And from there, I went on to work at a global pharmaceutical companies. I worked in three large ones. I worked at Wyatt, which is now part of Pfizer at the ventures , which is part of Sanofi-Aventis and Novartis, where I led the therapeutic areas globally. And then eventually I ended up going to a startup in Philadelphia and then I became, what’s called an angel investor. So I joined a group in New York called Golden Seeds. And I started a company before, which had exited. And so I was able to take some of that money and put it into angel investment. When I joined a group called Golden Seeds and our mission was to invest in women owned and women run companies. And I became part of their life science due diligence teams. And as part of that, I came across this technology. It was presented by one of the women that came to present to us. And I thought that the technology was really interesting. So I founded a company around it, very unusual technology didn’t really know much about it when I started at, of course, since then, I figured out that it isn’t in fact unusual it’s based on radio frequency chips, as I mentioned. So we tried for a few years in Philadelphia to make this technology work, but eventually found that the most advanced smart device technology was actually in Orlando. It had been developed at the University of Central Florida for NASA. And t hey put in about 10 years of work into it to develop what’s called a passive wireless system to go on the space shuttle. What we did is we licensed it from UCF and then we then further advanced it into a sensor for human diagnostics and animal diagnostics, and also other areas like r esearch b ased diagnostics. And so we’ve been working on that for about four or five years and through the work of some of our brilliant scientists, we were able to solve a lot of problems. As you know, w e’re based on r adio f requency chips, which are found in cellular communication. And they’re used as acoustic filters in those systems. Y ou probably got about 20 of them in your cell phone, but we had to adapt it to biological use. That’s not easy because as you know, electronics and liquids, don’t like each other very much, but we figured out how to adapt the system successfully. And we had done exploratory work on diseases like Lyme disease and Influenza. And then when Coronavirus hit, we thought we were an ideal system to detect the virus because we had already had some experience with Influenza. And so we decided to pivot to COVID. And so w e’ve been working on this since about October a nd now h ave shown a proof of concept that it works. And now we’re doing our studies to go to the FDA with our first product. James Di Virgilio: 14:32 And so you’re pivoting. It’s not really a pivot in your case, actually, when you’re just deciding, Hey, our technology can also work for detecting Corona virus, perhaps walk us through at a very high level, what that looks like, how do you get a sample of the virus? How do you test something like that? Like what does that actually look like in the lab? Most of us hear these of this companies testing this , or they’re working on this vaccine, but take us behind the curtain here backstage to what it was like to have to try to apply your technology to the coronavirus . Vanaja Ragavan: 15:01 So we had to focus on getting the right reagents . We found out that one of the critical aspects of our system is that we need to add a binding agent to a chip basically. And it’s a very tiny little chip. Actually, the volumes needed are in the microliters. So we had to find the reagents that would work. We found out from our previous experience that this system works very well. When the affinity agents like an antibody has a very high affinity for its biomarker . In this case, it would be the SARS cov two virus. So we had to find the antibody. We had to figure out how to put it on the chip. So it bound what’s called covalently, which means that it’s a tight binding. And then we had to test it with the virus itself in order to determine the output. Now, our output is it’s really interesting. It’s an electronic readout because it’s an electronic readout. And because the affinity reaction is so rapid, our system reacts within seconds really to the binding of this antibody with its virus. And so we had to adapt our software in order to determine the best method to detect this particular reaction, the antibody and the virus. So, you know , we took a little bit of time doing that. We also had to prove that we could detect it many times. And so now we’ve collected clinical sample data. I would say with about, I don’t know , a hundred samples to show that we can determine. And then we had to tweak our software to be able to do the optimal determination. And so now what we have to do is we have to actually do the samples needed for the FDA approval. And that’s kind of what we’re launching on. So the way the system works is that you would take a sample in this case, it could be a swab of the nasal pharynx. I don’t know if your listeners have had a COVID tests , but there’s usually a very long stick with a swab at the end and they try to get it from the back of the throat. So we would take that in because it’s a dry swab, we need to put a liquid into our system . So we put that into a buffer of some kind. Then a small sample of the buffer is removed and added to our chip. And then we have a reader that actually reads what’s going on electronically. And so we will add a graphical user interface that gives instructions on what the user has to do to determine whether the virus is present or not. And in addition to that, what we’re trying to do in our first instance is to look at what we call a viral load. I mean, does the patient have a high, low, or medium viral load or no virus at all? So we’re trying to make those determinations at the same time. So really once a sample is put on the system, the whole system can do the detection in about 5 to 10 minutes, and then the readout will be provided on the reader on a screen. And then the data is provided to the provider or to the patient. James Di Virgilio: 17:59 And you just described the process really well. Right? What was it like when you first had that moment that, Oh, this is working like we’ve made this happen? Like this is actually doing what we want it to do. What was that like for you and your team? Vanaja Ragavan: 18:11 I think it was really thrilling. So we have a contract with the Air Force to develop this for the Air Force. And so we had to provide the Air Force with an early milestone where we repeated the sample several times. And when we put that report together, it was approved by the Air Force. That was a really big thrill for us. We were able to do repeated studies and send it to them. So it was an external validation that our system is working. And so we fulfilled our first milestone for the Air Force. And we also told the Air Force, we would ruggedized the system. That means that we take the reader and if we drop it from different levels and so on, it still survives. And we’ve just finished that. And so we’ve shown that the system is pretty rugged because if you’ve got a warfighter carrying something like this to the field, it needs to be rugged. And so now we’re doing our final studies to demonstrate how well it works against the standard laboratory tests . So it was a lot of work. We have a great team really, that is sort of half electronics, half biology. And I think it’s really interesting to combine these two totally very in fields into one system because we can take advantage of both fields of use the electronics part of it gives us incredible ability to do data analysis, data, distribution, artificial intelligence, and the biology aspect of it allows us to go into lots of different areas that probably could not have been done without a portable system like this. For instance, traumatic brain injury. Somebody has a problem in the field. We can take this and make the diagnosis at the time of the injury or other infections. And so we see a lot of potential for this technology because of the nice marriage of electronics and biology. James Di Virgilio: 19:55 Yeah, its not a one-stop shop like we’re spending all of our time today talking about coronavirus, because that is obviously the topic of the day. But as you mentioned, this is going to have wide ranging effects. If it is in fact able to do what you want it to do, especially down the road. If you dream up a world where I could take my cell phone as a layman and potentially use a technology like this to detect things that would affect me and my family down the road, but let’s take this in a different direction for a second. So obviously your company has tremendous human capital. You have all sorts of smart people doing all sorts of collaborative things to come together, to create synergy, to craft what you’ve crafted. It’s one of the neatest things about a free idea marketplace, a place where we can come together and share expertise. On the other side of things, you have to have physical capital, you have to have money and resources. How were you able to maintain funding as you’re spending all this time researching and gathering ideas and testing ideas to get yourself to the point to you’re at now. Vanaja Ragavan: 20:48 So we’ve done primarily private investors, mostly small investors. A lot of physicians have funded our company, which is good because they see value in it. And then most recently we received a large contract from the Air Force to do this work. So we’re still looking for funding. Money is always in need. And so we keep looking for further funding, but that’s kind of how we’ve been funded really at this point. James Di Virgilio: 21:11 And if we imagine a rollout here, logistically, if you’re able to begin rolling things out, quarter one, quarter two, quarter three of 2021, whenever that is, what kind of distribution scale are we talking about? We’ll just a couple of hospitals or doctors have this. Are you going to be able to send this all over the place? I mean, how many units essentially are we thinking of being able to put out into the world? Vanaja Ragavan: 21:29 Actually, the interesting part of it is the manufacturing, because these chips are made in the billions every year, literally about 2, 3 billion a year. We have a built-in system for expansion, which is really good. And the electronics, as you know, is something that can be done pretty much anywhere in the world. We happen to focus in on Germany because we found that a lot of our base technology is well-established there. So our fabrication system is in dressed in, and they’ll be doing all of our worldwide fabrication. They will probably use facilities elsewhere too , but they’ll coordinate that. And our electronics is also made in Germany, in Munich. That is the heart of the electronics, but the other electronic components will be designed and put together in the US so because both the chip is commonly available on the electronics is commonly available. That is not a rate limiting factor for us on the biology side. On the cartridge side, we’ve had to build some cartridges that work with the system because the system is sensitive to external pressures. That’s why it was developed for NASA to be able to detect external strain and stress on the spaceship and temperature. So we have to account for that with our cartridge and with our software. And so we are working with some pretty high level companies in the US to solve those problems. And I think at that point, then we’ll have to coordinate and put the entire manufacturing process together. So w e’re working on that now, and we’ll have a final solution by the time we launch. I think the system can be taken anywhere, maybe not in the first instance, but in the second instance, when we do a point of care, we’re hoping we can take advantage of the s cale-up available for the electronics industry and the biological industry to be able to provide what’s needed. James Di Virgilio: 23:14 And you can imagine an incredible application for so much of the world, especially if you’re like me. And you’d like to travel around the world in places where the nearest hospital is not close to you at all right. And you’re traveling or you’re somewhere, or you’re in a third world country that just doesn’t have access to high level medical care, but they may have a cell phone. And again, this is in the future, but to have an ability to detect some of these things would certainly be a game changer. So let’s take us down to the end here and close the curtain on this with this question, why do this, why launch a company? Why leave a day-to-day practice with the FDA? Why take all this risk, spend all this time? What motivated you to do this? Vanaja Ragavan: 23:52 I don’t know if I have a real answer except that I wanted to use my knowledge of business and medicine to create something that could help people. And I didn’t quite understand that technology when I started. So maybe it was a little [inaudible] when I started, but I think I’ve learned a lot and it’s just allowed me to get into an area that I would never even have an emission doing. Otherwise, the people I’ve met, the knowledge I’ve gained and the collaborations that I’ve been able to pull together has been a real thrill and the persistence to try and find the smartest technology, the best available, and the people that make it happen. It really is what keeps me motivated. And the ability to help people. We can truly help people with this. I think so. James Di Virgilio: 24:36 And I think thats what’s interesting is we live in an ever fractured world at times, with how they feel about free market versus essentially planned market versus a bunch of other economic topics that interest me a lot in my daily life. But what you said is what I come across the most frequently and discussing things like these as entrepreneurs. And it’s almost always, I wanted to use my skillset , my knowledge, my expertise, to help others, to help my community, to help the world around me. And that’s often the origin of the idea, which is, I think so rewarding. So immensely deep, it’s connecting you to your fellow people and allowing you to obviously change the world for the better, which I think is one of the great things about what the Cade celebrates here. What I celebrate, what you’re celebrating in your daily life, not only as a founder of your company, but also as you mentioned, an angel investor funding, other ideas. So I wanted to thank you for coming on the show today. Obviously we’re very excited for what you’re doing and how you’re trying to help the world around us. Once again, our guest today was Dr. Vanaja Ragavan the founder, president and CEO of Avianna Molecular Technologies. You can find her on the web. You can find her on LinkedIn. Just thank you so much for being with us today. We really enjoyed having you. Vanaja Ragavan: 25:40 Thank you, James. We’ve enjoyed learning more about the Cade Museum, and I think we were one of its awardees this year. James Di Virgilio: 25:46 Indeed, you were. And congratulations on your success for that. For Radio Cade , I’m James Di Virgilio. Outro: 25:53 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews , podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists, Jacob Lawson.

One of four girls, Cara Negri’s favorite book growing up was about an amputee named Michelle who went on to do everything. Cara has helped develop video motion analysis to analyze how people move and how to help them walk. Her company, PnO Data Solutions has developed tools that are widely used in the rehab and physical therapy market. *This episode was originally released on October 24, 2018.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Video motion analysis of disabilities or anyone in motion. That’s what we’re going to talk about this morning on Radio Cade. I have with me Cara Negri, who is involved in a company that is taking this to market or is already in the market. So welcome Cara. Cara Negri: 0:52Thank you. Richard Miles: 0:52So before we begin talking about you and about the company, why don’t you tell me exactly what the underlying technology is and what it does. We’ll come back and talk later about the applications and so on. Cara Negri: 1:06Sure. Basically video is becoming the ultimate medium for us to communicate with people. It tells a story much broader than a image or a paragraph. And so with 2D motion analysis or video analysis, we can take our smartphone and take a video of someone moving and then we can actually measure some of the progress that a person is making. So let’s say you hurt your shoulder and you’re not able to lift it 100 percent up, we can take a video of you now doing the best that you can and we can measure that angle and then we can go through some rehab, maybe provide some intervention with a brace, and afterwards we can measure that intervention in the same way that we did by measuring that angle again and measure how well you’re doing. And that also gives you the person that is going through this process, the feedback to see how you’re doing in your progress of rehabilitation versus me just shouting feedback to you or you’re not doing good enough or that you need to lift higher. When you can actually see it, it actually connects to your brain a lot faster and you can actually improve your function through that bio feedback. Little to no response by me, I don’t have to intervene as much Richard Miles: 2:20I see. And so Cara, just so I understand, is the technology here, do you use, for instance multiple cameras or is it a software solution which you’re taking video in theory from anywhere, like a smartphone and you’d simply analyzing it with that software? Cara Negri: 2:34Yes. So you can take video in any way you want. So if you want to use a really high fancy camera, high definition camera, then you can or you can use your smartphone because smartphone cameras are actually pretty good these days. So it’s about the practicality of it. Richard Miles: 2:51I see. Cara Negri: 2:52Um, we all may have seen how Avatar is made with lots of pinpoints on the person and we’re tracking their motion and we can do lots of animation with it. And that is the 3D motion analysis that some people may have seen. And that’s great for research and for higher capture of what we need to find out about a person. But for the practical uses of physical therapy or prosthetics and orthotics, we don’t need that much information. We need one dimensional or two dimensional information for us to observe, so the reason that video is that ultimate solution is because our eyes are not very reliable. We make mistakes, we see things that aren’t really there. So using video to even just play something back and see that event again, as you see that we do with the World Cup going on, other sports, video playback is becoming a part of even professional athletics. So if we can just record a video and use that for playback, that’s the first step to seeing things that you may have missed in the real life event. Richard Miles: 3:59So the name of the company is PnO? Correct. And that stands for Cara Negri: 4:03Prosthetics and Orthotics. Richard Miles: 4:05It’s associated or owned by a New Zealand firm, is that correct? Cara Negri: 4:09The New Zealand firm is called the Tarn group and they create software solutions for a lot of motion analysis as well as learning management systems. So we all started as a group providing software solutions for athletic coaches. So thinking of golf or bike fittings, tennis, professional swimming, rugby, different athletic associations were using the software to provide feedback to their athletes. So that they could perform better. Richard Miles: 4:40I see. Cara Negri: 4:40So when I started using their products, I saw the opportunity for me to use it as an educational solution as well. So when I was trying to teach other practitioners what I was seeing in a video why I was making a clinical decision. I started to use video as that medium so I could slow things down and say that right there. That’s that moment of why I’m making this clinical decision here. And so I was using mostly their bike fitting software to do so. And it’s actually very similar bike fitting, if you think about it, the biomechanics, if you have a pedal that’s not correctly placed than it, it’s going to affect the performance. So if we can do the same for healthcare, we look at how something might be affecting someone’s performance and we can make adjustments biomechanically with interventions or therapy. Richard Miles: 5:32Let’s talk about how you ended up doing this.Tell us what you were like, say as a kid, what sort of influences did you have and then maybe a little bit about your education. Cara Negri: 5:42Sure. I grew up with a family of four girls total. So my dad didn’t really treat us like girls. It was just we are who we are. And… Richard Miles: 5:54You’re the oldest Cara? Cara Negri: 5:55No, I’m actually one of the youngest. I’m a twin and I’m one of the youngest and um, we were also athletes, so our family was very known in the area for being basketball players. Richard Miles: 6:04Basketball, okay. Cara Negri: 6:05So funny enough, I’m the one that did not play college basketball. I pursued engineering, so I don’t know exactly what it was. I used to tinker with things I used to play with things, take things apart. Used to compete in Odyssey of the mind competitions and things like that. But the real big moment for me was I read a book when I was in fourth grade about a girl with an amputation and I read it so many times that the librarian gave it to me at the end of the year. Richard Miles: 6:31What was the name of the book, do you recall? Cara Negri: 6:32Michelle. Richard Miles: 6:33Michelle. Cara Negri: 6:33And I still have it. Richard Miles: 6:35You still have it. All right. And what was… thats sort of unusual, um, what was the storyline? Was it a true story? Cara Negri: 6:40Yeah. Richard Miles: 6:42Oh it was a true Story. Okay, got it. Cara Negri: 6:42Yeah, and she was just this young girl who lost her leg from cancer and pursued skiing, horseback riding, all things that people told her she couldn’t do and I, I guess I found it incredibly motivational and inspiring and so I just read it and read it and read it. Richard Miles: 7:00And the librarian gave you the book. Cara Negri: 7:01Yeah, she gave it to me at the end of the year and said “No one else has checked this out and you’ve checked it out four times this year so you can have it.” And so, um, I kept it, but I didn’t know I wanted to be in biomechanical engineering or anything like that at that point. But I think it definitely planted a seed in my mind. Richard Miles: 7:20And where did you go to school? Cara Negri: 7:22I went to Michigan Tech for a few years. It’s an engineering school, but then I transferred to Kettering University… Richard Miles: 7:29Okay. Cara Negri: 7:29Which is a cooperative program, which is amazing if anyone’s looking into going into engineering programs specifically because it’s cooperative. You do three months of school, then three months of work and you do that for four and a half years about. Richard Miles: 7:42Where is Kettering? Cara Negri: 7:43It’s in Flint, Michigan. Richard Miles: 7:45Flint, okay. So when you started your undergraduate, you knew you wanted to be an engineer of some sort, you already knew you wanted to be in biomedical. Okay. And so post college, did you go straight into the industry or what did you do? Cara Negri: 7:58So my co op program was in biomedical engineering working for a prosthetics company and we did research on casting devices and ways that we could take better impressions of a person’s residual limb and so had a lot of hands on experience in the profession by that time and so I actually was accepted to a prosthetic certificate program two weeks after I graduated. So I went to Chicago to northwestern for that and then I was in patient care in prosthetics and orthotics for about two years. Maybe not even because I had the research bug or I had the inquisitive bug of some kind. Not that patient care isn’t inquisitive and it is very complicated. It’s very challenging because every patient is different, but for me I wanted to design. I wanted to invent I guess. Richard Miles: 8:49Were either of your parents engineers or in the medical field at all? Cara Negri: 8:52Um, my dad is a medical technologist. Richard Miles: 8:54Okay. And do you remember going to his place at work or was it, did it have any role in wanting to steer in that direction? Cara Negri: 9:02Yeah, I think that the measurement core, the core of being able to measure something is at the heart of that influence I guess because a measurement to me is very comforting. It’s something that you can rely on. If you can measure it, then you have something that’s objective versus… Richard Miles: 9:20So you’ve always been kind of a numbers person. Cara Negri: 9:22Yeah. Richard Miles: 9:23And what did your sisters ended up doing? Are they all in the NBA now or… Cara Negri: 9:27No, they’re also in healthcare. So two nurses and my other sister works for an insurance company. Healthcare insurance. Yep. Richard Miles: 9:35Let’s talk about PnO. You’ve said that one of the things that has surprised you has been kind of an objection by the market or reluctance by the market. And is that because you think people don’t really understand the applications the potential applications or what is behind that? Cara Negri: 9:54There are a large majority of professionals that are a little bit older and that is not to say that people that are older do not embrace technology. It just sometimes does go hand in hand. But I actually see all spectrums of people who are older that embrace technology and people that are younger that don’t embrace technology. The biggest hurdle for me and in PnO data is that it’s not a part of their regular day workflow. So taking out the camera as much as it seems like it might be a very small thing is not always second nature to people. So it’s asking them to… Richard Miles: 10:33So like an afterthought, okay. Cara Negri: 10:33Yeah. And then also unfortunately they don’t have a billing code for the service. So when they do it, it’s because it’s for the greater good of the patient or to properly communicate to the physician or the physical therapist or the insurance company. So there is a great part about PnO data that helps people collaborate. And that is the bigger picture that I hope to spread through the technologies that we have people let’s say in New Zealand who have a rare case of fibular Hem Amelia and cannot get a professional in their area because it’s just so rare. Whereas if you use our video analysis platform, you can actually connect to people from Canada, from Australia, from the US, and get them to look at your videos and provide expert analysis on it as well. Richard Miles: 11:24Are there any cases in which the video analysis actually brings you a new insight into the patient’s condition as opposed to simply being confirmation or an adjustment that they able to look at the video and go, oh, x or y is going on and I had no ideas. Do you have examples like that? Cara Negri: 11:40So when I first started using video, I started using apps that helped me take video and I could then show a patient, here’s how you’re doing. But when I started using the group product silicon coach, I actually had that moment of going through a process of looking at someone’s gait and how they were walking. And not only did I find things that I could then show the patient that they had improved on, I found mistakes that I had made. And so that was the biggest light bulb moment for me was I’m a better clinician because I use this video, I found the mistakes that I made in my patient care versus just verifying that I had done the right thing. I actually was able to improve. Richard Miles: 12:20To correct your own mistakes. Cara Negri: 12:22Yeah. Richard Miles: 12:22Right. So it seems in principal that it would be relatively easy to make the compelling point with the utility of this, but if I understand correctly, a lot of healthcare professionals, since they can’t necessarily recoup the cost right away because there’s no billing code. Right. And it’s something yet another thing they’ve got to do that they just are not interested. Cara Negri: 12:41Yeah. They really have to weigh the value of the time spent on it. Even if it is only 10 minutes and they’re not getting paid for it, that extra 10 minutes could be spent with another patient. And unfortunately healthcare is getting squeezed and squeezed because of things that… and they’re having to weigh those options. Richard Miles: 12:58Is there a future at all in telemedicine and could conceivably you have a few years from now, patients at home with their spouse or parent or whatever, takes a video of them and they send it in and then you analyze it. Is that a model that’s out there? Is this something that for the retail home market is still useful? Cara Negri: 13:16We’ve definitely done a little bit of that already, so we support mobility clinics where we’ll take video of people trying to run for the first time or attempting to run for the first time in PnO data. It’s a web based software, so you basically just invite people to your area, your community on the web based software, and so we invited all of the patients to take a look at their videos that we captured of them that day and so then they can feasibly take a video of themselves six months later and compare the two on their own if they wanted to and also just reflect back on, oh, look how far I’ve come. Richard Miles: 13:53Oh, I see. Cara Negri: 13:53Yeah. Richard Miles: 13:54I’ve seen some of these sports jams now. Sometimes they’ll also have a rehab clinic as part of the gym. Are they potential customers or are they already buying your product? Cara Negri: 14:02Yeah, absolutely. And so they are potentials and there are people that are doing that right now as well. Richard Miles: 14:08You’re still a small operation right? Here in the US. Cara Negri: 14:11Um, I actually am responsible globally for all of prosthetics and orthotics and then our entire team in New Zealand helps support PT or rehab facilities just really depends on their need or their want. And we do have a couple physical therapists on staff over in New Zealand as well. So we kind of match the clinic or the organization with whoever’s going to be the best person to train them. And it also sometimes depends on time zones. Richard Miles: 14:40Right, right. Now you’ve chosen to locate here in Gainesville. Was there a specific reason because there’s number research hospitals here or tell me the decision tree that led to Gainesville. Cara Negri: 14:48Well that was my husband. Richard Miles: 14:51Pretty simple. Cara Negri: 14:52I used to live on the beach in California and he somehow drew me away. Richard Miles: 14:56Wow, so you must really love his company. Well that’s great. I know you’ve been at this a few years, so you’re still sort of in the beginning stages of trying to get this technology now and if you saw somebody in a similar situation say yourself 10 years ago for instance, or and they were trying to get a technology out there, what words of advice would you have for them in terms of what they should definitely do and definitely not do. Cara Negri: 15:22So I did a lot of market research. My only mistake… Well, my big mistake I guess with the market research is that I contacted forward thinkers, people that I thought were at the forefront of best clinical care and of course they all thought it was a great idea. Richard Miles: 15:41A little bit too forward thinking. Right? Cara Negri: 15:42Right. So you number one should always do market research and make sure that your asking Richard Miles: 15:48Talking to actual customers or potential customers. Right? Cara Negri: 15:51Right. And not just about whether they think it’s a good idea, how much are they willing to pay for it and make sure that you get a diverse group of individuals that are in your market place, not just the forward thinkers, because with a product life cycle, you’ll always have those people in the beginning that will create the hype because they are interested in the best and new technology that’s available. But you really want to see a steady influx of the main majority of people that are in your profession or industry. So definitely make sure that you gather market research on every single person that represents the industry. And I guess number two was to consider the workflow of the people and make sure that this is not going to be asking them to change their current methods too much. Because if it is and it’s going to be a harder sale than if it’s something that just helps them do their job better and they already have something in place or they already have time spent on that. Richard Miles: 16:55So you’ve had to spend probably a lot more time with health care professionals to see exactly what that workflow is and how to integrate this into that. Cara Negri: 17:03Being in the profession. I knew the workflow and and I do think that I took that into consideration, but I didn’t take it into consideration that even 10 minutes could be a lot. Richard Miles: 17:14Too much, right. Good point. You made a good point earlier as well about the feedback that you get. I’ve seen this happen with other companies and then building the Cade Museum as well. You know, until you have paying customers, you get seduced by that positive feedback loop. Almost. No one will say, well that’s a terrible crappy idea, but the minute you start putting a price tag on it, then well, you know, we’re not quite sure. And that’s I think the first cold dose of reality and how scalable your product is. Cara Negri: 17:38Yeah, I’ve spent a majority of what I do as far as educating the profession on how to use video analysis. So it’s not just a turnkey solution like, here you go have it. I was really actually quite surprised at how much people didn’t know what to do with it. They, they needed to be sort of handheld every single step of the way, and so we do have outcome measures built into our software, which is actually a great measurement to use. Instead of just saying here, watch the video, draw some angles and take some measurements on it. They actually have a systematic workflow of what they’re supposed to be looking for. And so that’s really, really helpful to help guide people. I do think that education, no matter what technology is, you’ve got to think about that from the very beginning of how you’re going to get education to new users. Um, I started off doing webinars with every single person and it was very time consuming. So I created a youtube channel and I created all the videos that would show them how they need to do just about anything. Richard Miles: 18:39So you really had to think about sort of creative marketing tools, it seems like to get, again, that core idea, which seems to be a recurring theme that I’ve heard a lot. It’s a lot of times it’s not really the quality of the idea itself, it’s actually educating and informing people that the idea exists and that it actually can help them. Cara Negri: 18:55Yeah, and one of my main marketing agendas is to present at meetings in a scientific manner, so I’m not promoting my software, but I’m promoting the use of video and so I actually speak at international conferences on the use of video, in patient care and trying to get people to wrap their heads around that idea first and not promoting my business necessarily. Richard Miles: 19:21Well what seems also with it now, the constant improvement in smartphone technology and smartphone cameras that you might be opening up potential avenues of people who wouldn’t even have thought to use their phone for instance before to do analysis like that. Well, I’m certain that after this podcast episode is released, your server’s gonna crash from all the new orders and what is your website by the way? Cara? Cara Negri: 19:41It is a pnodata.com. So it’s P as in prosthetics, n as in Nancy, O as an orthotics. data.com Richard Miles: 19:52And on there they can see videos and other examples… good. Cara Negri: 19:55Yup, and you can check out our youtube channel as well as PnO Data Solutions. Richard Miles: 20:00Okay. Great. Cara, thank you very much for joining us this morning. I’ve certainly learned a lot and wish you all the best. Cara Negri: 20:05Thank you. Outro: 20:10Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support. Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and inventor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song featuring violinist Jacob Lawson. And special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Cars that can talk to traffic signs. It’s not science fiction, it’s a company. Dr. Enes Karaaslan is a civil engineering scientist and the co-founder of Connected Wise, a 2020 Cade Prize Finalist. The Orlando start-up is developing technology that connects autonomous vehicles to safety infrastructure, especially in rural areas. Initial data shows that such devices can prevent thousands of accidents per year and save many lives. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:38 Cars that can talk to traffic signs. It’s not science fiction, it’s a company . Welcome to Radio Cade, I’m your host Richard Miles. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Enes Karaaslan a civil engineering scientists and the co-founder of Connected Wise an Orlando startup . That is developing technology that connects autonomous vehicles with traffic signs. The company was also a 2020 Cade Prize finalist. Welcome to Radio Cade Enes. Enes Karaaslan: 1:01 Thank you very much, Richard beautiful introduction. Richard Miles: 1:04 So let’s start by defining terms. I think probably most of our listeners are pretty familiar with the notion of driverless cars and network vehicles, but just so we’re sure. What do you mean when you say connected and autonomous vehicle? Enes Karaaslan: 1:17 Absolutely. We hear a lot about self-driving cars. There are a lot of companies who are actually commercializing marketing very well. The self-driving technology, but more accurate term will be, I guess, for autonomous vehicles. The objective is to give some automated features to the vehicle, to provide safety of the drivers initially. And hopefully in the future, maybe we can replace the driver. There are five levels of automation. What we see currently in the traffic Tesla is one of the pioneer companies and marketing the self-driving. We actually define those vehicles as level two, level three automation. When we reached a level five, we don’t need driver on the driver’s seat. There are companies who are testing, even doing pilot projects in certain areas in California. In the other States, we have a company who’s doing autonomous shuttles in Florida as well. One of the important technologies that will support these vehicles is the connectivity connected vehicle technology, simply aims to provide communication between vehicles and between the vehicle and the traffic infrastructure. They call these technologies V2, I and V2V if it is communicating with the pedestrian, they name it B2X. Now we have a more broader term, which is connected and autonomous vehicle. We would like to provide some connectivity and some autonomous functionality is in the vehicle. So that’s how we define it. We are solving a unique problem about these connected and autonomous vehicles. Richard Miles: 2:58 So just so clear on this Enes, an autonomous vehicle that is not connected is something that has, you know, I’ve , I’ve noticed recently when I have a rental car, there are these features now where for instance, on the cruise control function, I can set a certain trailing distance, right? When it’ll break automatically, as it gets to a certain distance that I can define from the car ahead of me it’s features like that. Right? But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s talking to the other cards, it’s onboard computer that is performing some of the functions that I would perform, right. And then a connected cars , as you said, more like Tesla, where the car is actually communicating with other cars. In addition to maybe performing some of its functions. Enes Karaaslan: 3:36 I would distinguish vehicle communication from the vehicle automation vehicle automation will give you a features like changing a lane automatically, or stopping at a stop sign or understanding the traffic light color and acting accordingly. The vehicle of communication is a supporting technology that will make a lot of the things easy for autonomous vehicles, such as recognizing a traffic light can be difficult at times. So the traffic light can send a message as real time signal about the status of the traffic light. So before the vehicle arrives to an intersection, it can actually understand what color is going to be when the vehicle reaches that intersection. So the ultimate goal is simply to remove all the traffic control devices that is designed for human drivers that will give us maybe a smooth operation in an intersection. We may not even have to stop in the future. This is the ultimate goal. There are a lot of safety benefits that disconnect vehicle communication can actually provide . They estimate that just intersection crashes, that one single safety application can prevent more than a thousand lives per year. Just one single safety application in an intersection can save a lot of lives. It has enormous benefits for the traffic congestion and the associated costs . So this technology can save us about $170 billion per year, just from the total congestion time. Richard Miles: 5:11 That’s a big number. And that was a very important clarification. At least for me, that you made in terms of autonomous versus connected in that these autonomous vehicles are getting more and more sophisticated with their AI so they can recognize a stop sign, or they can recognize a stop light , but they’re not actually talking to it . The connected is one level further where the computer on your car is literally talking to the piece of infrastructure and communicating valuable information. It’s not just depending on a recognition algorithm, right? Enes Karaaslan: 5:39 We are trying to simply provide as much redundancy as possible to those vehicles. There will be times in a work zone area where there’s going to be detour and in this detour, or it will be very difficult to navigate safely because the lane lines disappear. Sometimes maybe a flagger is simply rotting the traffic. So in complicated scenarios, the vehicular communication can be very helpful. We can send real-time signals, wireless signals to those vehicles about what they are supposed to do and how they should act in a traffic situation like this. Richard Miles: 6:15 So Enes let’s talk specifics of your company and what you’re developing. And I think that would be useful for listeners to understand that a lot of this depends on infrastructure investments by a given city or municipality. And from what I understand, there’s a big difference. Now there’s a big gap between the smart infrastructure that you’ve seen urban areas versus rural areas. So could you give us sort of an idea how big is that gap? And then what sort of timeline are we looking at to catch up a small town in Ohio versus large city like LA or Washington DC in terms of the infrastructure to support smart technologies or connected technologies. Enes Karaaslan: 6:51 This is a very good question. This is the actual problem we are hoping to solve this vehicle communication technology that I just explained uses wireless signals, and it requires fiber optic infrastructure. And a lot of the times, especially in the rural areas, we don’t have any of those. So bringing this technology to the areas, we actually will need the most because rural areas experienced higher traffic fatalities than the urban, our countries roads are actually 97% in the rural. So we have large rural areas that we want to bring safety. The main problem is going to be very expensive and not practical to deploy this technology in these areas. So we approached the U.S. Department of Transportation with this idea of using traffic science. We told them we could use simply these science , smart science to allow communication from the infrastructure to the vehicle. And we can help support the existing communication and as well as we can help autonomous vehicles in traveling in the rural later, the U.S. DOT, liked this idea very much. And they awarded us Small Business Innovation Research award , and we’ve been putting effort for the last three years, doing a lot of outside testing in the challenging climates , challenging conditions, sometimes different speeds. So we reached to a point that we can reliably use a smart sign like ours. They look like colorful cue QR codes, but they are designed specifically for this purpose. It doesn’t require any wireless communication. It simply sends a message and information that we need to send through the vision-based communication. There is a camera inside the vehicle. It recognizes the sign and decodes this message. Richard Miles: 8:44 Let me see if I understand this correctly. I saw a demo video or one of your devices, and this looks like something like, like a very large transponder that people are used to putting in their car for like ETolls and stuff like that. Does it visually recognize, say a code on a, say a stop sign or any other traffic sign. And is that how it works or is there an active signal that is being sent out? Enes Karaaslan: 9:09 It’s a visual identify a visual code that is linking to a message. When this visual code is identified as an encrypted code, only the device can understand what it means. So a third party cannot alter the message, but we decided to make also a device that is not just giving this capability, communicating between the sign and the vehicle, but also give the driver some of the advanced driver assistance features. So when you put this device on your windshield, it’s not just going to recognize those signs, but it will also give you a lot of the features you will see in Tesla. It will recognize the traffic signs and act accordingly. If your vehicle support automation, you can optionally use those automation features too . So your vehicle will stop when there is a red light detected. So we give all those features on top of we provide this vehicle of communication between the smart sign and the device. So U.S. DOT need was the actually, how can we move this connected vehicle technology to rural areas, but we also needed to consider some commercial aspects of it. How can we market this device to the current drivers? So we thought if this device could also give some advanced driver features, the drivers will definitely benefit from it. We are aware that it’s going to take some years until we deploy these signs to the locations where the DOT is going to need until that time our customers will be able to use those devices to benefit from some of the emerging technology features. Richard Miles: 10:50 I’m guessing though, that the device requires some sort of software interface for the vehicle itself, right? So is that relatively easy to do? Is it something like an Apple play feature where you just plug it in or communicates wirelessly and then it takes the information that it’s getting from say a sign. And what does it do with that information? Would the car, for instance, automatically slow down as it’s approaching a stop sign? Or is that how it works? Enes Karaaslan: 11:11 Yes. If your vehicle supports some automation, usually 2016 and about models have that capability, then it can simply send the vehicles control system, a signal, a message about a traffic situation. But if your vehicle doesn’t support any of it, it will simply warn the driver. We are the visual audio warning. So it’s going to tell you and navigate you on this complicated work zone. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Florida, but we have a big construction project going on I-4. And when I try to use my Google maps, it always fails. The road is changing constantly. So if we could put one of these signs are for the, these devices will simply relay the correct information about the road construction and the navigation system in that screen, you will see will guide you on the accurate route. We also made a lot of useful applications, scenarios, not just in the rural areas, but also in the urban areas. We were demonstrating in this automated vehicles summit in Florida, it was in Miami downtime . One of the applications was a garage parking application for handicap people, transportation challenge people. We simply put up one of our signs in front of this garage, very big garage. And it was even very difficult for us to find a handicap parking. So as soon as the sign is recognized, the device simply navigates the driver to the closest handicap parking area. We do a similar application for electric vehicles. Sometimes it’s difficult to find a charging station. So it navigates the driver to the closest charging station in the garage. One of the good application for urban areas was a lot of the times the navigation apps fail to give you the accurate route because those high rise buildings, block the GPS signal. However, the smart signs can actually be helpful in machine vision mapping. What it is doing is when the sign is recognized, it can navigate you on the accurate rod, even though you don’t have any GPS signal. Richard Miles: 13:20 I see. And one of the things I like about doing this podcast is I think I understand the technology. Then I talk to the inventor and then I really understand it cause I didn’t focus or I didn’t get the fact that this differs from say, Google maps or GPS function in that one, depending on GPS, obviously. But two , those are maps that might be out of date the next day after they’re uploaded or you get your new software. Whereas the Connected Wise devices, depending on either recognition or current stimuli, I mean it’s information, it’s their current at the moment, right? It’s never out of date really, right? Because it’s reading what’s in front of it in a sense. Enes Karaaslan: 13:54 Yes, there is a dynamic condition like work zones. And if there’s a road closure, simply the construction company puts up one of our smart signs and relaying the updated road chemistry message to these devices. So then your vehicle sees the sign. It will learn the accurate route and it can navigate safely on the detour. And it can understand the situation about that road closure. There was even one interesting application with demonstrated for the urban area to Google maps was actually routing the traffic and telling the driver to make a left in this intersection, but there was a no left turn sign there. So the route was an updated of course, about this traffic situation. What we did was stood up one of our signs and we rather the traffic on the accurate route by giving the updated roads, government tree and the traffic condition in that area. So we are trying to build something that traffic operators can actually help these connected automated vehicles and let them navigate safely in the challenging traffic conditions or in dynamic scenarios like work zones. It’s building communication between the traffic infrastructure and the drivers. Richard Miles: 15:04 I see. So really the most advantageous in situations that you have to depend on real-time information, because there’s been some change like a work zone, as you said, or for some reason the GPS driven database might be out of date or there’s no other infrastructure to support smart technology. Enes Karaaslan: 15:20 And also this message we are sending is not just a smart sign is not simply saying what type of sign is going to be. It’s saying a lot more than a normal traffic sign can say. So it’s not saying just no left turn. It’s actually giving the whole road geometric data of that intersection, which is very valuable for autonomous vehicle because intersection situation, the current sensors on the autonomous vehicle can be challenged sometimes to understand the road geometric history is happening there. A LIDAR may not see the other side of the road in a lot of situations. So if he could send the road geometric data, to autonomous vehicle via a visual input, that will be very helpful for those vehicles and help them localize their position in terms of a non road geometry data, right? So we are doing different products, different market for different market segments. We have different products feel about autonomous vehicle. We are simply aiming to sell a software solution since your vehicle will be accurate with all those sensors we need. So your camera will be available, et cetera. It will be as simple as a software solution. Then the vehicles subscribes to that software, it can start recognizing those signs. If you have a conventional way called that is not a be any sensor, any camera, then we simply sell these devices. They are very affordable. They cost under 500 bucks and it gives you a lot of automated vehicle features. It uses state of the art, artificial intelligence models. What we achieved is really great. We were able to put all those complicated competitions in a very small affordable device. And so that’s what we are hoping to achieve in this project we have in the company. Richard Miles: 17:07 So Enes, as I always like to hear about the kind of the aha moment from inventors or founders. So tell me a little bit about how, when and where did you, and I don’t know if you have co-founders, but did you come up with this idea? Was it just sort of a flash of inspiration or did it slowly dawn on you as a iterative process? Enes Karaaslan: 17:24 So the idea of using signs to send a message has been around for a decade. The challenge was they tried matrixx barcode kind of system, similar to QR codes. There were big companies who attempted to use these kinds of technologies. The problem with the QR code base technology was sometimes they are designed for laser scanners. And if you want to use a camera, it’s not going to be working as robustly as we hope , even with ourselves is very common QR code applications in our mobile phones. But when it comes to a traffic environment, there are so many challenges, dark time, nighttime condition , bright sunlight. A lot of the times only a small portion of the sign is visible to the camera. But in the QR code based systems, when you cover a small portion of the message of the barcode, the whole message is running . We put a lot of thoughts to solve this challenge. We need to use the power of image recognition because this barcode systems are simply encoding decoding methodology. If you simply trying to understand the black and white areas, and if the sign is partially covered or not visible, then it won’t happen. This is a real common application in the internet forums. You will see when you sign up in a forum website, you will see a default avatar in terms of shapes. They call it identity cons . They are automated . They generated images unique to your IP address. So that was our aha moment. Okay. This is a unique image generated automatically. And it’s this thing to a V IP address every user on the internet. So we decided to generate unique images for sign messages. Every time we put up a sign, it’s very distinct and the other sign we built , they are not a barcode system, but they are actually unique images that is simply a visual identifier for a message. So this gave us so much capability in terms of even 90% of the sign is not visible. It can still safely distinguish the sign from the other signs and activate the correct message. Now, we were able to use conveyor affordable camera system to operate safely and high vehicle speeds, or even in challenging elimination condition. When the sign is not very visible, even when a tree branch is covering the sign or snow is covering the sign, it can still pick up the message robot slate . So that was our a home moment . I was, I guess, cruising on a forum website and realized that, okay, this is an automatically generated that I could actually use to solve this problem. And U.S. DOT really liked this idea. It was very different, very unique than other ideas. That main focus on to our QR code, bar code kind of systems. Richard Miles: 20:25 Right? That’s fascinating, but I’m sure you’ve discovered that great ideas don’t sell themselves. So tell me a bit about where you are in terms of a company you form Connected Wise. Tell us when you did that. And then where are you in terms of the development of your technology in terms of funding or employees or path to market, what does that look like for you? Enes Karaaslan: 20:45 We started the company in 2018. When we received the grant from the Department of Transportation, we were a very small team of three to five people all founding members for PhD graduates from my University in Orlando, the University of Central Florida. We did an extra ordinary performance. We did a lot of testing outside, we’re using our own vehicles. So we did a prototype that was ready for demonstration. After phase one U.S. DOT really like our performance decided to award a phase two award, which was a major grant for us. We of course grew our team. And now we have 12 people in the team and two big offices trying to commercialize the technology. Now we made a lot of progress in the technology side, but making the technology ready for a commercial product takes a lot of time. You have to think of a lot of marketing commercialization. You have to think of advertising. And our go to market strategy took some time for us to figure out who our initial customers are going to be. The majority consumer. We decided to first target the city and counties started from Florida’s rural counties and our simply approach to that. Um , for pilot projects, we asked if you could put up these signs and deploy some of our devices in the vehicles and do a pilot project and see how much safety benefit we can bring to the county vehicles. And in the continuation of this pilot project, we can distribute some of these devices to the volunteer residents of the County and measure a broader scale benefits of the technology. So we have done a lot of communications with Florida county here, they are transportation departments. We are hoping to start a pilot project in Florida and very soon. So those are our initial customers. However, in the future , we are going to be targeting fleet customers who have a fleet of vehicles that we can simply provide advanced driver assistance futures . By that time, we are hopefully going to build some science in several locations in Florida. And these fleets also can benefit from this vehicle communication futures as well. But the main goal will be for fleet customers, helping them to collect data from their roadway . Sometimes for road infrastructure operators, our devices can collect a lot of data from the roadway about the work zones or the traffic congestions , et cetera, even the asphalt condition in the late maturity , we are hoping to target automakers who will agree to integrate the technology natively in the advanced driver assistance technology, we’ll be able to support our system and it can recognize our signs in the future. Hopefully this is a multi-faceted market. So in the other side of the business, we are to license the sign technology to the sign manufacturers because they are also interested in connected vehicle applications. And there are billions of signs in the world and the placing those signs is a huge market for the sign manufacturers. So that’s the other phase of the market. We are hoping to target. We are aiming to make $50 million by the year 2025 selling around 50,000 devices. So that’s our objective in the near future. Richard Miles: 24:15 So it’s a very interesting point. You mentioned earlier about data and data collection. I didn’t understand how valuable that is until my daughter who an actuary for a major insurance company explained to me that getting really high quality data, especially in automobiles is of enormous value in particular to insurance companies who are very, very interested in all of those details. So I didn’t realize just to have valuable that is, and it’s in terms of investment. Now you mentioned the Department of Transportation a nd that grant, are you also raising money from private investors? Or how does that work? Enes Karaaslan: 24:45 So we are now seeking seed stage funding that will be in the form of matching contribution. U.S. DOT Is hopefully going to award another round of funding for commercialization efforts solely, and its seed stage funding will be simply matching that contribution from the government. It’s going to be a safe investment for the investors saying that you’re only going to invest if the government is interested in the technology and decides to invest for commercialization right then by the end of 2022, we are hoping to raise series a around funding. Richard Miles: 25:20 So that’s a pretty rapid timeline. It sounds like you’re well on your way. And it’s one final question. I always like to hear about the personal background of inventors and entrepreneurs. Tell us, what were you like as a kid? Were you one of those kids on the playground that made the rest of us feel stupid because you were building suspension, bridges out of twigs and the rest of us were just playing with our toys, or what point did you want to be an engineer or what was the path to your current career when you were a kid? Enes Karaaslan: 25:43 So I always known that I would be an engineer even when I was a child. So I guess that’s something I was very sure about. I was always creative building things was always hands-on, but my major is civil engineers , but I always wanted to be a computer engineers . However, if you’re an engineer, you do a lot of the things. You can be a great computer scientist. It doesn’t matter which engineering discipline you are in. We are all using the same tools, same knowledge in our fields. What I was good at, how I both, I was good at knowing a lot of things, rather than being best at one engineering discipline. My uniqueness was I was able to connect different things with each other. Computer science expect with a civil engineering practice. And even in this case, it was an IP address future to a transportation application. So that was something I was good at. It’s sometimes a PhD students. They usually have this hardship and explaining complicated things to the public. And I believe I was better at compared to my peers explaining the complicated concepts in a simpler rehearse to my colleagues or to my friends. So I have been always an entrepreneurial person than fans in my class. I started company when I was still a student. So I finished got my doctorate degree, but my talent I guess, was to be able to connect different things that are in different disciplines. Richard Miles: 27:10 Enes, telling me, does this run in the family were either of your parents, engineers, or business people or any of your siblings? Enes Karaaslan: 27:16 My father is a great engineer. I guess I got it from him because he was an electronics engineer, but people expect them to do even a good job in changing electrical system in household, but it’s not his expertise. But what he was good at is even though something is not his expertise, he still think that is his responsibility to be good at things that public will expect from it. So he was able to fix any electronic equipment in the house. He was able to build his own furniture. He was able to do a lot of the things by himself. And that’s something that I admired , I guess I wanted to be in the same way. I was a civil engineer, but I never said a climbing job is not my expertise, even though public think that it could be associated to my field. Richard Miles: 28:04 Right. Enes Karaaslan: 28:04 But I try to learn as much as possible from different things. And I guess what is unique is sometimes is if you connect in a different field, something you’re good at to another field that you’re also good at, you can achieve a really great thing by communicating these two, right? And a lot of the emissions in science happen in that way, when you get different disciplines together. Richard Miles: 28:27 Right? That’s something we’d talk about all the time at the Cade Museum is how invention is really making connections between a fact over in this field with a factor in that field or an insight, and a lot of different inventors have a lot of different interests and they connect a field that they know to another one. And one final question. I usually ask this earlier, where did you grow up? Enes Karaaslan: 28:46 I grew up in Turkey. I moved to United States to study my PhD six years ago. I had been here before, during my undergrad education as an exchange student. And I guess during this exchange semester, I made a lot of good friends who later visited me back in Turkey. So that was, I guess, helpful to my decision of coming back here to continue my education. I also admire the competition here in the higher education, millions of people from so many different countries competing something greater. So that really attracted me. And I really enjoyed that competition here . Richard Miles: 29:22 Well, I have to say you probably couldn’t have picked a better city than Orlando. I’m not from Orlando, but I’ve been there quite a bit. And in terms of cities there’s growing that is developing, that is trying out new things. Orlando certainly has a lot going in that direction. Enes Karaaslan: 29:35 For entrepreneurs is growing really fast, especially Florida is trying to become an autonomous vehicle hub. Richard Miles: 29:42 You couldn’t be in a better location and it’s thank you very much for joining us today and Radio Cade, fascinating discussion and your company’s doing well. You’re doing well and wish you the best of luck. Enes Karaaslan: 29:50 Thank you very much. I really enjoyed this podcast. Richard Miles: 29:53 Great. Thanks for coming on. Outro: 29:55 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

What can we learn from the brain about learning itself? Based on the latest findings of neuroscience about how the brain learns best, Noel Foy offers training to teachers, parents, students, athletes, and coaches. For instance, improving executive function helps master impulsive behavior and reduce anxiety, both valuable traits for students and athletes. Noel also talks about how her son’s experience with concussions influenced her journey from school teacher to “neuro-educator.” *This episode was originally released on May 20, 2020.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:39What can we learn from the brain about learning itself? I’m your host, Richard Miles. Today my guest Noel Foy, founder of a company called Ammpe – A M M P E, which offers training to teachers, parents, students, athletes, and coaches based on neuroscience findings about how the brain learns best. She’s also the author of a children’s book called “ABC Worry Free”. Welcome to Radio Cade, Noel. Noel Foy: 1:03Thank you Richard , for having me. Richard Miles: 1:04Noel, one of the reasons you wrote your book “ABC Free” was to help students, teachers, and parents manage anxiety. So this has gotta be a golden moment for you, right? I mean, now we have an entire country of anxious households, and so I’m guessing for you, an opportunity. Noel Foy: 1:18Well, I am not responsible for the pandemic. Let me just put that out there, I certainly am seeing an increase in anxiety. I’m hearing from more students and parents about a little uptick. Certainly something like this would trigger more anxiety and I’m working with more teachers remotely doing some lessons in their classrooms to help their students manage their anxiety. So, I think it’s a timely experience for folks to take a closer look at what kind of coping skills they have in their pocket. And if they don’t, this is a great opportunity to develop some coping skills, not just for a pandemic, but for just how to manage anxiety-provoking moments in our lives. Anxiety pops up all the time. Something that is to be expected, it’s normal from time to time. When we’re worrying too much, then it’s something that we want to really have some strategies for. So I think really helping kids develop into adults have some strategies that they can rely on in these times is really important. Richard Miles: 2:20Right. So were chatting before the show, you’re from Boston but you’re actually in Martha’s vineyard right now. So I assume that meant nothing but Netflix and Chardonnay. Noel Foy: 2:27Believe it or not, it’s been a great opportunity for me to get some things done that I haven’t had much time to do. So, for example, I made some videos, I figured if ever a time to help parents and teachers and coaches and students with anxiety and coping skills, It’s now. So I have been working on some videos I put up on YouTube and writing a lot of articles on how to cope in parenting. What are some things we can do in our parenting that can help bring the anxiety down, can we do in our parenting language in our modeling that can help these stressful times go a little bit better. Richard Miles: 3:04So as I mentioned, the top of the show, your model is based on findings of neuroscience and that’s been a field in which there has been tremendous growth and research in the last 10 to 20 years. We know things now that we had really no clue at the turn of the new century. So, why don’t we start there, what are some of the key findings of neuroscience that have informed your work and inform your teaching and your coaching model? Noel Foy: 3:27So as you said, there’s a lot of exciting findings in the last 10 to 20 years. We’re learning so much about the brain. Uh , some of the things are these neuro myths that we used to believe to be true, such as that we only use 10% of the brain or that the brain is set at childhood. So now knowing about neuroplasticity and this process of our brain being malleable and that it continues to grow and change throughout our lives based on how we use it is really exciting information and learning a lot about emotion and the connection of emotion to learning has been really, really powerful. So as a neuro educator, I’m bringing in findings from neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology and education, and taking those findings and turning them into practical applications for teachers, coaches, parents and students. And that piece about the emotions has been really, really powerful. Judy Willis’s work out at the University of Santa Barbara has been really instrumental in helping us learn about what happens when we’re in states of fear, frustration, anger, boredom, or lack of relevance to what we’re learning and how that can kind of create this virtual stop sign in our brain and block learning from happening. We’re not receptive to learning in those states. So I’ve spent a lot of time in that space helping teachers and students and coaches and athletes decrease the stress. Since we know that this emotional piece is connected to learning, whether you’re learning how to do a math problem or how to write a paper or how to make a speech or how to execute a play, we’re learning. We’re learning in our jobs every day and stresses and anxiety can get in the way. And the emotional piece with Daniel Goldman’s work with social and emotional learning has been really powerful. He has found that EQ so that emotional quotient is twice as important than IQ and technical ability and driving performance. And we’re seeing now in schools that they’re paying a lot more attention to social and emotional learning and developing competencies and standards in those areas. And then the research in cognitive science has been really exciting about how we learn how we process and apply and remember information and Russell Barkley’s work on executive function. Executive function, emotional social skills are on every list of employers skills they’re seeking in their candidates. Yet we don’t typically, explicitly teach these in school. So I’m really excited to see that we’re seeing more attention given to these, seeing that they’re are so important to success in school relationships, sports, jobs and life. Carol Dweck’s work on mindset is really exciting. Fixed and growth mindset are two terms that she coined about really exploring our attitudes about intelligence and ability and how we praise our students, how we praise our kids, what feedback we get and our thoughts about effort and motivation and how that connects to achievement and how it connects to how we face challenges or do not face them. That work has been really powerful for me, as has been John Kabat-Zinn’s work on mindfulness and research on cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness are two of the most effective treatments for anxiety. So I’ve incorporated those into the ABC strategy from the book “ABC Worry Free”. So I’ve come up with a strategy to help people decrease that stress so that they can be in that sweet spot. We need a little bit of stress, right? To get up every day and to compete. But when we have too much stress, we’re not receptive to learning and we’re not going to remember what we learned and we’re not going to be able to execute. So helping folks have that strategy has been one thing that I’ve developed from a lot of that research. Richard Miles: 7:25So Noel, “ABC Worry Free” it’s targeted for a younger child. What is the general age range for that book? Noel Foy: 7:31Well, that’s interesting. It is targeted, it’s geared towards kids. So I have used that book as young as preschool through adulthood. Although it’s written as a children’s book, I find it just an approachable way to tackle a topic that some people feel embarrassed about or insecure about. And through the character we can learn about the patterns of anxiety. We can learn what happens in our mind, in our bodies when we get anxious and we can start to see how we avoid things when we’re anxious or we step away from challenges. So everybody has a bee’s nest in the book. The character Max is afraid of bees and then decides he’s never going to go outside and play again. And he’s excessively worrying that every time he’s going to go outside he’s going to get stung . So when I’m working with older kids and with adults, we talk about, well, what’s your bees nest ? What’s your trigger? And we can learn from the character about the patterns and then we can learn the ABC strategy, relative to that person’s trigger. So I have used it with all ages and the first time I used it with high school aged students, I thought I was going to be booed off the stage. And I was probably halfway through the reading and one student just yelled out randomly “relatable!” So, the stress response works the same for kids and adults. So I feel it’s for anybody. Richard Miles: 8:55So Noel, now tell me a little bit about how the methodology, how it works when a student or a parent comes to you and says, “Hey, my child is anxious and learning this particular subject” or a teacher comes and says, “my students are anxious.” Do you walk them through a series of practical oral exercises or written exercises or what is it that they do to overcome or work through that anxiety in that particular subject? Noel Foy: 9:15Usually one of the first places I start is with teaching kids about their brain or teaching teachers and coaches about the brain. We are required to learn every muscle and bone in our body as kids, but we don’t really learn about the brain in practical ways that we can understand it in real time. So if my thoughts are getting into a worried place, I have to start to pay attention to that. And I was never taught about that as a kid. And to this day, most teachers are not trained in how to help kids with anxiety or are teaching them about the stress response and what you can do in real time when you notice worry thoughts and when you notice those physiological changes in your body. So I start there usually, is start to teach them about their brain and I teach them about neuroplasticity because for some kids they really love that it’s based on science, but for others they just need that sense of hope that you can change. And a lot of folks have a mindset that they don’t think they can change, that this is something that they might be stuck with for the rest of their lives. They have this sense of permanence. Richard Miles: 10:23If I could interrupt, neuroplasticity is this idea or this finding that we know is true, that the brain is such, it can be rewired. And I think one of the best examples that I’ve heard is, for instance, people who lose a limb that let’s say they lose their left arm in an accident, the brain can actually train itself to use rewire said now that the right arm for instance, is much more effective. Is that what we’re talking about with neuroplasticity? Noel Foy: 10:46 That’s an example. So when you start doing something new, whether it’s just thinking in a new way or feeling in a new way or doing something in a new way, that’s basically neuroplasticity in action. So the neurons start talking to each other and you might be starting to carve new roads and new pathways in the brain because you’re doing things in a different way. And at first it’s hard because you’re teaching the brain something new and you may be thinking in a way that’s different. Well , let’s say I was an anxious kid and I might be thinking that I can’t do science, right? And I might have certain behaviors and certain thoughts that are kind of bundled together when I go into that science class. And if that happens habitually over a year or more, maybe several years, that becomes my default. My brain is thinking, Oh , that’s how you roll, when you go into science class. But when I start to teach it new ways of thinking, so mindsets would be one thing I’d be working on. Back to your earlier question, I’d be teaching them about their brain, about neuroplasticity, about the stress response. They need to pay attention to their worried thoughts and the physiological changes in their body. And then I teach them the strategy. ABC strategy is one strategy I would teach them. I basically incorporated research about mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy as well as some executive function and mindset shift in that strategy. So that A is about accept how you feel. So that’s about mindfulness, accepting how you feel and in moments of stress instead of denying it or dismissing it or let’s say judging yourself, just accepting that. And that can bring down the anxiety and notch right there. And the B is about breathe slow and deep. And we know that slow, deep breaths , send a message to the nervous system to slow the game down so you can get your legs back under you and reset. So you can think clearly again. And then the C step is change your thinking. And that’s about making that cognitive shift in your thought process and your perspective and think in a new way so that you can step into problem solving mode and move forward. So those three steps come together as a result of my research on mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy and Carol Dweck’s work on mindset. So those are some of the things I do and then I also spend a lot of time helping kids build their executive function skills and their social and emotional skills. Richard Miles: 13:18And by executive function, Noel , it’s basically the ability to step outside yourself and judge your own actions. Like, that’s a good idea or not a good idea. Noel Foy: 13:26So that what you’re describing there is really metacognitive thinking, where you have that ability to kind of step back and say, okay, is this a good approach? What would be the best approach to use in this moment? Or for this task. Richard Miles: 13:38Young kids are not famous for executive function. Correct? Noel Foy: 13:41Right. So executive function is something that develops over time. Our executive functions reside in our prefrontal cortex and it’s the last part of our brain to develop. They can be built and taught, but it’s something that through a lot of practice and training we become better at executive function, or those who don’t get a lot of practice and training or good quality instruction, they may not develop the executive function skills as well as we’d like them to be successful in school or in their jobs. So your executive functions are basically like the CEO of your brain and there are a set of skills that include attention, memory, planning and organizing, self regulating your emotions, having that ability to make a cognitive shift in your mind and having cognitive flexibility and self monitoring, being able to see how I’m doing, make some adjustments if necessary. These are a set of skills that we need to produce. Task initiation is another big one. So if I’m having trouble getting started on a task, that’s an underdeveloped skill that I would need to work on. So, I spend a lot of time in that place with students because these are underdeveloped skills for a lot of kids and they can be built and taught. We do a lot of activities to help them develop those skills. Kids who have weak executive function are usually missing like a mental schema in their mind of what it looks like, like what the finished product looks like or what the set of steps look like of how I would approach this task and so they need some practice with activities that would help them build those skills. Richard Miles: 15:19Just as a comment, at The Cade Museum, we also have as we design exhibits and the programs, try to incorporate a lot of neuroscience findings in there as shorthand called it the head, heart and hands. Now idea behind is that it’s much easier to remember a fact, let’s say a scientific fact or something in chemistry, if at the same time you’re learning about it, you’re actually doing it. A Hands-on experiment or somebody’s telling you about it in an interesting way is much more effective long term or even short term, as opposed to simply reading it in a book or in a fact sheet or whatever. And there seems to have been a lot of studies that validate that, that you’re much more likely to remember something if you can associate it with another experience, particularly if it’s engaged as one of your other senses, much more likely to retain it. Noel Foy: 16:00Yeah. I love one of The Cade Museum’s missions about teaching and inspiring and not through just one discipline, but connecting it to daily life and making it relevant. When I mentioned Judy Willis’s work earlier, when you’re doing something that’s not relevant, that can be stressful, right? So you have a lot of kids that are in school saying, why do we have to do this? I’m never going to use this, and helping them find ways to make it meaningful and see the relevance of this can definitely boost the motivation. Richard Miles: 16:31That comment that you made earlier was what triggered me because one of the things that we decided from the beginning was we thought if we teach science to inventions, right? You’re basically telling them the answer. At the beginning you’re saying this is what this technology can produce, this thing that you have in your hand, whether it’s an iPhone or it’s anything really, you’re telling them the relevance upfront of why the chemistry and the biology and the physics that went into developing that particular technology are important because it produces this whatever this is, and we seem to have found that for kids in particular who don’t think that they’re really interested in those subjects, they become interested if they understand the connection, as you said, the relevance to technologies that they use or experience or are affected by every day. Noel Foy: 17:12If there’s that little hook, then that usually will boost their motivation and then that will usually increase, let’s say more positive emotions associated with this. Then you have more dopamine going in the learning process, which makes for happier moods. You start to associate that whole experience in a more positive way. So that whole piece about emotions and learning being linked I think starts to come to play through just that one example. Richard Miles: 17:38Noel, some of your work is with athletes and coaches, which I think is fascinating to a lot of people because in sports mental engagement is key, right, to success, particularly at a certain level it’s already given that whether it’s a young kid or professional athlete that physically they’ve got what it takes to be participate in that level. But a lot of it comes down to the mental executive function, discipline and so on. Give me an example, for instance of your clients and without naming any names, but when they come to you, let’s say a coach or an athlete, what is a typical problem that they’re dealing with and how do you help them? Noel Foy: 18:10Sure. So most of my work with athletes has been at the high school level and what coaches are noticing is that their athletes are having harder time paying attention. So attention is something that’s coming up a lot. Lacking self-direction and self-awareness is coming up a lot and self-regulation issues is coming up as well. The coaches are feeling like they’ve taught the plays, but they’re feeling frustrated that the students aren’t executing them, so they’re trying to figure out ‘what am I doing wrong?’. We go through a lot of the things we’ve chatted about so far, but one of the things I try to teach them about is the brain. Again, how we can build these executive function skills cause a lot of those challenges that they’re dealing with are related to executive function. When, let’s say you’re feeling very stressed, your executive function skills can be blocked, so it’s like a virtual stop sign could be going up in the brain. Now is that coming from a place of fear? Is it coming from a place of anger? So if you have some athletes that are, let’s say, not self-regulating, their executive functions could go offline, but we need those to be in place for them to execute the play because they’re not going to really remember it. If those executive functions aren’t online, they won’t be able to execute. We do a lot of activities with self-regulation, self-awareness, teamwork, collaboration, all those things will be enhanced when kids executive function skills are online. But when the stress response is activated, those executive function skills will go offline, helping them understand what’s happening there, and then they can hopefully interrupt their stress response. For example, we’re seeing a lot of kids in chronic stress these days and the brain does not discern the difference between, let’s say, a real or a perceived threat. So let’s just say for an athlete, the perceived threat might be, I’m going to get yelled at by the coach, or I’m going to be taken out of the game if I make a mistake, right? So if that’s the perceived threat, it could be enough to trigger that athlete’s stress response to activate. So if that’s happening, their body’s feeling all sorts of physiological changes, which is going to get in their way, and then they’re going to go to fight, flight, or freeze, then they’re basically not going to be effective to execute the play. So I try to help them discern and really pay attention to your thought process. And you can interrupt that stress response cycle. If you start to notice those worried thoughts and you start to notice that your body starting to feel different. Those are two great warning signs for you to pay attention to. And then let’s now implement one of the strategies, that we’ve been practicing to help you reset and get yourself back into a receptive state so you can execute the play. Richard Miles: 20:50Is there a particular sport that those athletes or coaches come to you and if so, even a particular position or do you see all sorts of different sports and all sorts of different positions? Noel Foy: 20:59The coaches that have approached me most have been basketball coaches. I have worked with AD’s though, I’ve done presentations for all of their captains and then train the captains and then the captains go back and train their student athlete peers. And then those coaches are relying a lot on those captains to train the kids. So I’ve worked with whole teams, I’ve worked with just captains. I work with the coaches of course too , cause it really needs to start from the top down. You need to really model it and live it. If a coach, say for example is let’s say going after a ref for a bad call and not self-regulating, of course there’s going to be stress and of course they’re going to be upset, but if it’s done in a way that that coach gets kicked out of the game or has gone into that out of the sweet spot stress zone, then that’s not going to be a great model for those athletes. So I really believe that the coaches have to be trained and then the athletes, you kind of have to live it and model it in practice. And a lot of the athletes are feeling afraid to make mistakes. A lot of the athletes are having trouble rebounding, no pun intended there with the basketball, but rebounding from mistakes and showing resiliency, they’re getting stuck in that negative place that they made a mistake and then they’re having a hard time moving on. So we do a lot of practice with how to build resilience and how to come back from a mistake and how to face the next challenge, embrace it instead of fearing it and how to keep your mind and your body in that sweet spot. So a lot of the strategies I’m doing, whether I’m working with athletes or teachers or parents, is I am giving them key information and proven strategies that appeal to how the brain learns best. You can think of them as if they’re mental Gatorade for the brain and they’re helping decrease stress and sync the social, emotional, and cognitive parts of the brain so that you can boost your learning, boost your metacognition, boost your executive function, boost your execution and your performance. Richard Miles: 23:00Noel, how do you validate your results? Do you do surveys afterwards of the teams, for instance, the classrooms that you work with or do you look at their test scores or even in the case of an athletic team, how are they doing it and season and so on? How do you hold yourself accountable to make sure that your methods are on the right track? Noel Foy: 23:17So with teachers, I will have them answer some evaluations. And there’s one school that I was working specifically with two teachers for about a two month period, and I was in there just about every day. So first before I started, we had all the information about how often kids were participating in class, how often were they having behavior issues in class, I had all their grades. So we started to track after they were trained, were the kids participating? So that was very measurable. Typically, we’re seeing in most classrooms about the same four to five kids. Let’s say you have a class of 20 to 25 kids, you’re seeing about the same four kids raising their hands on a regular basis. So what about the other 20 kids? We don’t know what they’re thinking and those four kids are getting continual practice, but the others, we don’t really know what they’re thinking. So we saw an increase in participation that was very measurable. You could now see 15 hands going up at the same time in the classroom. We could certainly see a decrease in behavior issues, less times going to the principal’s office or less times having to leave the class. We are seeing an increase in anxiety over about the past decade, about 17% increase in anxiety in kids, which is going to make it harder for teachers and for coaches. Right? And if they’re not trained and have some knowledge about the brain and some strategies and the stress response, I think it’s going to make their jobs really more challenging than they need to be. So we’re seeing more kids putting their head down on the desk, spacing out, acting out, freaking out, wanting to go to the nurse, going to the bathroom multiple times in a class. So we saw those numbers go down, way down. We saw the performance go up. So teachers would say that they were able to cover more content, that they could go deeper with the learning, get into critical thinking more. Kids were cooperating with each other more. They were taking more academic risks, they were feeling more comfortable. That’s something I should mention, psychological safety is absolutely critical. It’s connecting back to that emotions. And cognition being interwoven. A lot of kids aren’t feeling safe. Not that the teacher’s going to hurt them of course, but just emotionally, not feeling safe, afraid they’re going to be made fun of if they make a mistake or afraid to put themselves out there. Now you have other kids coming in with all sorts of other issues too. Could be trauma, or situations going on at home, but when they’re in the classroom, there could be things that we could cultivate to make the kids feel safer and the same on a team. The kids aren’t feeling like this doesn’t mean that we can’t be rigorous and can’t be demanding of course, but they need to feel that they can make a mistake, own it, learn from it, and not be, let’s say judged for it. So we saw kids definitely self-regulating better. What was really fun to watch when they were in games that were really close when the stakes got higher and the stress got higher, they were able to self regulate and when let’s say a ref made a call they didn’t like, they were able to process it, accept it and move forward. And same thing if they made a mistake, they made some kind of execution error with the play. They were able to come back and just put in more effort on that next play, either rebounding more or trying to make a great block or just be there for their teammates emotionally, physically in ways that they were kind of checking out before they were getting more wins. So that’s very measurable. They were winning more and less, let’s say, tension on the team, a lot more collaboration, greater teamwork, and teachers basically said a lot of the same things. Richard Miles: 26:56That’s fascinating. So you started out as a teacher and then you got interested in neuroscience and then from there you developed this role as an educator dealing with the neuroscience concept . Tell us a little bit about that, your career path. What did you start out teaching in what level, what grade, and then how did you first hear or get interested in neuroscience? Noel Foy: 27:14So I have been teaching on my gosh, close to 40 years as an educator now. I started out teaching dyslexic students, at a school called Landmark School and then I was a learning specialist at the Roxbury Latin school for about 25 years and then at the same time I was also a teacher trainer, worked for a company called Keys to Literacy, doing teacher trainings. I slowly evolved into being a consultant and a neuro-educator from an unfortunate situation with one of my sons, so one of our boys had multiple concussions that got me to neuroscience conferences because I wanted to learn more about the brain and how this was going to impact his life, how it was going to impact school and his ability to concentrate, pay attention. Going to those neuroscience conferences were just like eyeopening . And then that got me to conferences called learning and the brain conferences. That was my first encounter with Judy Willis. Where started to just have like one aha moment after another. It really started with learning about the impact of stress on learning, and I started to have these aha moments that, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s why I had such a hard time in science’, or ‘Oh, this helps explain why my kids love learning, but they hate school’. They were, and I was in those states of stress, the fear, the anxiety, the lack of relevance, sometimes anger and the frustration, those stressful moments were getting in the way of learning. So that just really inspired me to do something about this lack of information that most teachers weren’t getting trained in. That was not part of my teacher preparation and to this day, it’s something that still is in need of a lot of work. Thankfully there’s an organization called Deans for Impact, that is working on trying to change this. But right now I’d say the majority of teacher preparation programs might have a class or two on some kind of educational psychology. But teachers are not being trained in how to prepare adequately for the real time kinds of problems that we’re experiencing in the classroom and setting them up for, I think the best success we could about the knowledge that we have related to emotions and learning and how they’re interwoven and how to deal with the 17% increase in anxiety and the increase in depression and how are we going to manage all of this in the classroom. So I decided I needed to come up with trainings that would help empower teachers to build these skills kids and to build these skills in the teachers themselves. So if we think about teacher prep programs, the professors themselves would need to learn this new information in order to train the teachers. So that’s something that’s ongoing, but still a long way to go. Richard Miles: 29:57So I imagine as you talk to teachers, you probably have a fair degree of credibility having been one yourself. Right? So you’re not just some consultant parachuting in telling them, well here’s what science says. The fact that you have been in their shoes, helps you understand what they’re looking for and what they’re going through. Noel Foy: 30:13It absolutely does. Being a classroom teacher, a former classroom teacher, does give me some street cred and I still try to keep myself real by working with students to this day. So even though I’m a consultant, I still have my own students. I use all of the strategies on my students as well to make sure that I can be able to say, here’s how the student responded. Here are the results, here’s about how long it might take for you to start to see results. Here’s typical feedback I might get from students about this strategy. So yes, it definitely helps. Richard Miles: 30:48So obviously in addition to being a teacher, you’ve also been a student. Tell us about you growing up. What were you like as a student? Were you a good one, a bad one where you’re curious, not so curious? And then any indicators that you can remember as a young child being interested in the brain. Noel Foy: 31:03So I was a good student. I loved school. I will say that the healthy understanding of failure and I would put myself in situations that I knew I’d succeed in. So I wish I had a little bit more of understanding about mindset. I didn’t have any strategies so, I was that kid that got anxious in science class. I was that child that just walking to science class activated my stress response. So I went in on high alert and instead of listening to the teacher and taking in the science, I was just thinking, ‘Please don’t call on me. I have no idea what you’re talking about’. So that’s what I remember about that class instead of the science. That class, I can say I lived that experience about the connection of emotion to learning. I was in a state of fear and it blocked my ability to learn in that class and the way it was taught at that time period. It was not relevant to me at all. I had no idea that I would ever use science. So, I am very grateful that a point came in my life, unfortunately through my son’s concussion, I started to see the relevance of science and the applications just seem limitless for the classroom, for sports, for relationships, for the corporate world. There’s just so many applications. Richard Miles: 32:17So the other fascinating part of your story, one that we’d like to talk about at The Cade museum, it’s an entrepreneurial aspect. When you went from being a teacher, I assume in a public school or even a private institution, but essentially then became an entrepreneur running your own business, what sort of advice would you give? Because it’s something that a lot of people dream of, right? They think, well, I’m going to leave my first job and I’m gonna start a second career in own business. And that generally is a little bit harder than it sounds. Tell us about that experience of becoming your own boss and running your own organization. Noel Foy: 32:48Well, it’s really fun. It’s really challenging and it’s about something I really care about. I’m obviously passionate about it. It’s certainly something that requires a lot of persistence and resilience. There’s definitely times where I’m thinking, wow, I’ve worked really hard on this, am I making the progress that I feel I should be making or you certainly make a lot of mistakes and certainly have a lot of failures. For example, the book ‘ABC, Worry Free’, I had written a children’s book when my first of four sons was born years ago. I think I just thought I was going to put it out there and bang, somebody was just going to pick it up. Well that didn’t happen, but at that time period of my life I didn’t really have a growth mindset and understand the power of failure and that, okay, maybe take a look at your approach. There’s something to be learned here, so that ability to shift my mindset and really look at failure in a new way and have a healthy understanding of it, has really helped my work a lot to put myself out there and teachers and coaches have been very receptive. I’d say one of the biggest hurdles is time. Many teachers are feeling that, Oh man, I have a lot on my plate already, now I have this one more thing. That’s how they’re thinking about it is how am I going to add these strategies when I’m already feeling I don’t have enough time to cover my content. So you run into challenges throughout this process, but it’s so worth it and so fulfilling, especially when you start to see results. Richard Miles: 34:14I love that phrase and well, a healthy understanding of failure. I think a lot of entrepreneurs and inventors that we talked to describe something very similar. It’s not if you fail, it’s when you fail because you will have failures along the path and obviously even for athletes and so on, it’s how do you use those failures, learn from them, and then leverage them into your next achievement. But not to be surprised when they happen. Noel, this has been great conversation and at this moment you don’t look like you’re failing to me, so keep it up . Of course in the Epic we’re in now, maybe we’ll all just sit around, like I said, Netflix and Chardonnay, and that’s what the next three years are gonna look like. But hopefully not. Noel Foy: 34:50You’re probably going to learn something new, so you’re keeping that neuroplasticity going through this period. Richard Miles: 34:56Thanks very much for joining me on Radio Cade today and wish you the best. Noel Foy: 34:59So thank you so much for having me. It was great. Outro: 35:02Radio Cade is produced by The Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida . Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song is produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

Where does creativity live in the brain, and why does it matter? We talk to Rex Jung, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico, a research scientist at the Mind Research Network, and a practicing clinical neuropsychologist in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jung talks about how standard measurements of creativity correlate with the structure of the brain, and how the brain can “rewire” itself to take on challenging or unfamiliar tasks. This is especially important in our early years, but still effective as we grow older. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:02 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:40 Where does creativity live in the brain and why does it matter? Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host Richard Miles today, I’m talking to Rex Jung, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico, a research scientist at the Mind Research Network and a practicing clinical neuropsychologist in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dr. Jung studies, both brain disease and what the brain does well, a field of research known as positive neuroscience. Welcome to Radio Cade , Rex . Rex Jung: 1:09 Thanks for having me. Richard Miles: 1:10 So you have done a lot of fascinating research and a lot of very interesting areas, including traumatic brain injury, lupus, schizophrenia, intelligence, and creativity. So Rex, we can either make this the first of 18 episodes on your work, or we can pick one. So I say, let’s talk about creativity if that’s okay with you. Rex Jung: 1:27 Sounds good. Richard Miles: 1:29 So I took a look at some of your recent research on creativity. And one thing that jumped out to me as a layman, I don’t have any special expertise in the background was your use of tests to determine baseline levels of creativity. I noticed that you mentioned something called the creative achievement questionnaire, and you also use something called a musical creativity questionnaire. So we can start with what your working definition of creativity is, which I assume these things measure these tests measure, and then tell us, how were those tests developed? How do you know they’re accurate? And then how do they differ from other tests that have been around for instance, to test on divergent thinking? Rex Jung: 2:07 So at the onset, I should say that as a neuropsychologist, I’m very keenly aware of test reliability and validity. And the tests in creative cognition are universally somewhat crappy. That’s not a technical term, but it is a term that kind of captures the fact that we’ve only been trying to capture this construct in the last 50, 70 years, and only really aggressively trying to study this in the last 10 or 15. So we inherited measures that came to us from the past and the creative achievement questionnaire, as you mentioned, first is perhaps one of the better of these that it just measures your achievements in 10 different domains. It was a test created by Dr. Carson at Harvard, I believe and it really quantifies or attempts to quantify creative cognition across things from most generally in the sciences and the arts more specifically in things like inventions versus culinary arts. So it really quantifies things across those domains to answer a different part of your question. The definition is not one of mine of creativity, but one inherited from Dr. Stein in the 1950s who defined creativity as the production of something novel and useful. And that dichotomy is really interesting looking at novelty on the one hand utility on the other. And there arises from that brain mechanisms that could tap novelty versus utility. And finally you’re mentioned of divergent thinking is one of the measures of novelty generation that has been used since the 1950s. And that is okay, but not the only measure I’m hopeful as we move forward in this field, that we can develop better metrics and measures of creative cognition. Richard Miles: 4:06 Well, that helps a lot Rex and creativity on one hand, it’s very popular in that people like to talk about creativity in terms of musicians and artists and what makes them tick. But it seems like there are also a lot of fairly common misconceptions about how creativity actually works in the brain like, Oh, well, creative people, they’re using their right brain and it’s uncreative people using their left brain and that sort of stuff. How definitively does the research show that those conceptions misconceptions are either serious or inaccurate or flat out wrong? The way it works in the brain for most people sort of a black box, right? They just think something happens in there . Some of us are creative, some are not. What does the research show in terms of how it actually is working neurologically? Rex Jung: 4:49 I’ll correct a misconception that just arose in your description of that. Some of us are creative and some of us are not. I think, in my research and did my hypothesizing about creativity. It is clear to me and research our research and other research supports this, that creativity is a type of problem solving. And so everyone has to have that at some level. It’s either more or less of it. And if creativity is a type of problem solving for very low incident problems, it is valuable in the fact that we are able to think outside the box and come up with something novel and useful, that would address problem. That is less prevalent in our day-to-day life. I like to think about creativity as being somewhat dichotomous, but overlapping with a construct of intelligence where it’s also a type of problem solving, but it’s problem solving for things that happen on a more regular basis, as opposed to once in a hundred years with a hundred year flood, for example, what am I going to do? My house is going to be underwater. I need to figure out something really novel and useful to get out of this particular. So there are a number of what we call neuro mythologies about creativity. And you mentioned one of them that creativity resides in the right brain or right hemisphere. This arises from work with neurosurgeon theory, I believe, and a neuroscientist who looked at patients that had epilepsy and they separate the corpus callosum, which is the central connecting structures between the left and right hemisphere. And they discovered that the left and right brains function somewhat differently. The left is more logical and linear and reading and math tend to be localized in that have a hemisphere. And then the right hemisphere is more synthetic and adaptive and some artistic capabilities might reside more over there. So that is where this neural mythology of left brain right brain or right brain locus of creativity emerged from our research has found that, and others have found that it takes nearly your whole brain to be effectively creative. And it doesn’t reside in one hemisphere or one lobe of the brain, but it’s an integration of different parts of the brain that are critical to creative success. Another myth is that you have to be extremely intelligent to be creative. A genius, Einstein and Newton, Picasso, and Michael Jordan are particular examples of genius in their particular domains. But as I tried to dispel the myth that you somewhat articulated earlier, everyone has creative capacity. It’s, it’s a matter of more or less than how you use it, what domain you use it, but creativity in my conceptualization is a critical problem solving capacity. Another myth is that you have to be kind of crazy to be creative, that there has to be some sort of neuro pathology in order to express creativity. And , and we have every number of examples of the mad genius from Vincent van Gogh to John Nash, who won the Nobel prize in economics. The movie A Beautiful Mind was formed after there is an equal number and greater number of the averse that no hint of neuropathology is associated with the creativity of Michelangelo or Edison. So these neuro myths prevail because we continue to view creativity as somehow elusive and a capacity that is given to us from the gods when actually it is a critical component of everyday thinking. Richard Miles: 8:26 So a lot of progress has been made generally in the field of neuroscience, particularly since the development of the functional MRI. What in particular strikes you say from the last couple of years in the field of creativity in neuroscience, that you’re excited about, that points to deeper or higher levels of understanding of how creativity operates in the brain, this sort of stuff that hasn’t made it yet into the popularized science articles. Rex Jung: 8:49 I’m most excited, perhaps about this studies of interplay between intelligence and creativity. There have been issues in neuro-psychology and one coming out in the journal of intelligence, which explore the interplay or overlap between intelligence and creativity, because my hypothesis is centered around these both being problem solving capacities. It’s important to understand where there’s overlap and where there is different . So I’m most excited about neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies, which look at brain networks that underlie intelligent problem solving as opposed to, or in addition to brain networks that are involved in creative problem solving. And I think that will really give us some insight into whether these problem solving capacities are rather similar. If one is hierarchically located above the other, like intelligence is very important and creativity comes from intelligence, or if they’re rather disparate or different from each other. I think that is exciting research. Richard Miles: 9:52 I’m guessing that a lot of people are looking at research or your type of research that you’re doing and seeing, does this have useful implication for, for instance, educators in particular at the preschool and primary school levels, or what are your preliminary conclusions or findings in terms of, are there ways that kids learn that perhaps should be changed with an eye towards enhancing their ability to learn more creatively or be more creative? Rex Jung: 10:17 I do have some preliminary ideas about this. It is very hard to translate neuroscientific research to actual life, but I think that there are some preliminary indications that there are things that we might consider doing differently. One thing that I usually recommend is adequate time for downtime that lets your brain meander or cogitate or think about ideas in a very non-linear way. And so the best example I have for this is for my own life where I think one of the most valuable classes for me in elementary school was recess. And so recess, what is it just play or is there something else going on? And I think there’s something very important going on where people are taking the knowledge that they’ve learned in the classroom in their life and being more playful with it and more nonlinear with it. And so that downtime, I think is incredibly important. I know caring stories from the students and teachers, our pre COVID educational paradigm was centered around a lot of homework and a lot of knowledge acquisition, which is an important aspect of creativity and intelligence and learning, but not the only one. There has to be time to put ideas together in novel and useful ways that requires a different approach and requires a more relaxed approach than is provided by just drilling towards knowledge, acquisition and testing. Richard Miles: 11:52 So may be an example of actually where popular consumption gets it , right. When you think about these stories of the Eureka, you know, Archimedes in the bathtub where after a period of relaxation, or like you said, the mind wandering and meandering, they hit upon, or the circuits come together and they have this insight, but obviously based on knowledge, they already possessed, right? Most of the people have these insights are happen to be experts in the field. Rex Jung: 12:13 Yeah, you have to have some thing in your brain to put together in a novel and useful way. So there is a knowledge acquisition part that is critically important to gather the raw materials necessary to be creative. But then Archimedes is perhaps the best example of sitting in the bathtub and figuring out how you would measure the amount of gold and a crown and water dispersion and Eureka. I have it where you have figured out a way to measure something in a very non-intuitive way. And so that downtime, and oftentimes people describe this arising from taking a bath or a long walk or run or doing something that is very non-cognitive where ideas are jumbling around and merging in unique ways and even sleep where they can come up with an idea that otherwise would have been elusive. Richard Miles: 13:02 So one problem I face is that my wife has all of her creative ideas, right I’m about to go to sleep. And she wants to tell me about them. And then we’ve learned how to solve that problem. I say, no, tell me in the morning, because I can’t deal with your creative idea right now. Rex Jung: 13:15 It’s interesting because she is telling you those ideas right before she falls asleep. When her mind is in a very relaxed state, when the day’s tasks are behind her, frankly, a perfect time to explore those. But perhaps she should explore those on her own because there’s no one size fits all. Richard Miles: 13:35 Yeah. The unfair thing is she can tell me the idea and fall asleep and I solved the problem in my head and I can’t fall asleep. Rex Jung: 13:40 Yeah. You’ll take up that idea and really start working it and then not be able to go to sleep. So, and that’s an important thing to consider too, is that there are different creative styles and some people really want to offload if you will, those creative ideas before she falls asleep, but then other people really want to work them and form them and look at them from different angles. And that’s a creative process too, is to really be deliberative about that creative process. And there’s a major theories that talk about spontaneous versus more deliberate creativity. And it sounds like you and your wife are matched well and that you have complimentary styles, but she should perhaps write those down and then you can start working on them in the morning. Richard Miles: 14:26 Well , I was going to say that most of my creative thoughts used to happen when I’d go running and an idea would pop in my head, but it just occurred to me that for the last year or so, I listened to podcasts instead while I run and I actually don’t have as many creative ideas. Right. Cause my mind is distracted listening to the story or two people talk. Rex Jung: 14:42 It’s working on information. Yeah. And on your internal process. Richard Miles: 14:47 So Rex , one thing I think you can probably say about Americans in general is that there’s this tremendous thirst for anything related to self-improvement and self-health so in the realm of creativity, sometimes h ere versions of this, particularly people my age mid to late fifties, I know you can rewire your brain. You can teach yourself new things, you stave off dementia and so on. And again, I’m not asking you to speculate too much, but is there anything in your findings that provide ammunition for those who say, Hey, we can all rewire our brains, become Picasso, or is it more i n the direction of, sorry about a year or two old and s et i n your age. So just keep playing golf and watching reruns. Is there any way for those later in life, let’s say m iddle-aged and beyond, do they still have a significant ability to increase their level of creativity? Rex Jung: 15:32 Yeah. So I think neither of those things are true in their extreme. You can neither massively rewire your brain to be something that it has not developed to be over decades, nor is it hopeless on the other side of the spectrum. But I think some middle ground is probably appropriate. I mean, we know that the brain is incredibly plastic when we are infants and learning things and acquiring new information and forming neural networks that underlie language, visual process as motor processing that decreases over the lifespan and it decreases in known way is the capacity to change your brain by changing your mind. And while you can modulate your brain function through concerted effort, that becomes harder over time. So if you are making a decision to make a major change in your life in your fifties and you and I sound like we’re the same age, although you’re quite a bit less gray than I, I would say it’s going to take a bit more effort and a concerted effort to do that. And that while the fantasy or hype about neuro-plasticity would imply that we can completely change our brain by doing this different thing. That’s probably more a factor of one to 3% change in terms of cognitive capacity. So I would encourage people at any age. And I think as our brains change in our fifties and up there is more of an opportunity to make more disparate connections than we would when we were younger. And we had many more tasks in front of us. You were talking about listening to podcasts on your runs and yeah, that changes your run from a free-wheeling kind of associative process to a knowledge acquisition process. And it’s going to be significantly harder to do that creative thing when you are consuming the creative product of other people and learning. So it’s important to do both learning and creative expression simultaneously, but that has to be balanced. And in older people like you and me , I think that’s really critical to set aside time to do nothing or do less or not acquire knowledge anymore . But extrapolate that be my best advice. Richard Miles: 17:50 I’ve read a couple of good articles in the popular press . I’m sure you’ve probably seen them too. Hypothesizing the connection between boredom and creativity and particularly in young kids, right? When your bored is where you think of perhaps a fantasy game, or you tell a story to yourself or make up a story because you just want occupy your mind. But if your mind is occupied, as you said, with a TV show or a video game or whatnot, you’re probably less likely to find the need to create something in your own head . Rex Jung: 18:16 Yeah. Boredom is kind of the bane of our modern existence. People talk about it as a bad thing, but it actually is an important aspect of our lives that force us, or invite us to use our brains in ways that can transcend our current experience. We can imagine. I mean, I can go anywhere in my mind’s eye from countries that I visited in the past to traveling to different planets in the galaxy. I can imagine just about anything and boredom invites us to use our imaginative ability to create different realities and create different ideas that might not have existed before. Richard Miles: 18:57 So I guess I have to be careful how far I take this example because then of course people go, well, I’m not gonna listen to your podcast because then you’re going to distract me from thinking great thoughts . So we’ve got to keep this within reason. Rex Jung: 19:08 Well, it’s a both thing. Like I said, I listened to the podcast to acquire knowledge, but then find some recess time to do your own thing and to put those ideas that you’ve acquired together in novel and useful ways. And I think that is the correct balance as far as the literature would suggest. Richard Miles: 19:25 So Rex, I like to ask all my guests a little bit about themselves and their background. And you’re originally from Boulder, Colorado, your mother was a technical writer. Your dad was a hospital administrator. So first question, what was it like to grow up in Boulder? I’ve only been once or maybe twice. And what was your first clue that you’d be spending your career studying the brain? Rex Jung: 19:43 Well, that’s a big question, but I loved growing up in Boulder. Boulder was a fantastic rich environment of very diverse kind of experiences from Buddhism and the Naropa Institute high-tech centers of engineering and NCAR is their National Center for Atmospheric Research. I mean just a real smorgasbord, if you will, of opportunities to see different ways that one might want to spend one’s intellectual life. Unfortunately, I chose as my undergraduate degree. Well , I don’t know if it’s unfortunate. It’s hard to say I’d studied finance business and got a degree and went into the business world and was not super happy about the intellectual opportunities for me in the world that I had chosen. So I quit that job started volunteering for Special Olympics with friends of mine, and really became interested in bringing structure and function in brains that work well and brains that work differently and really started to pursue the path of, well , you know, what’s going on in these brains and what is happening to create an individual who is intellectually disabled, but has incredible artistic capabilities. And I’m not talking about the art that your children produce that you put up on the refrigerator, but Alonzo Clemons, who is an autistic savant, creating just massively, technically detailed representations of animals that will sell for thousands and thousands of dollars. These brains are fascinating in their variability. And I wanted to go into studies and a career that looked at that. And that’s kind of what brought me here all these many years later, Richard Miles: 21:29 Growing up in Colorado, where you outdoorsy, were you a ski bum? Did you do a lot of hiking or how has that sort of influenced you? Rex Jung: 21:35 I wasn’t in anything bum, but I really enjoy camping and going out on my own and camping on the continental divide in Colorado and did a lot of that. So a lot of time to think I would bring, I have this somewhat embarrassing book , uh , memory of bringing Dante’s Inferno to read while I was camping on the continental divide. And then this lightning storm almost killed me and I thought I was going to go straight to hell. So , uh , I mean really a lot of time to be by myself, to look at the stars to revel in natural beauty of Colorado. I skied, I hiked, I ran , I did all of the things, but I wasn’t a bum of any of those. I wasn’t an expert in really any of those, but I just really loved growing up in Colorado and a very fun memories. Now that I’ve brought to New Mexico, a lot of natural beauty here, fewer people, I’m an outdoors guy, I guess, at my root . Richard Miles: 22:31 Yeah. One thing we always tell foreign friends for visitors, you really have not experienced the United States unless you’ve had a chance to drive out West long distances for long periods of time. And then you really appreciate the profound nature of our country in terms of physical beauty and so on. Rex Jung: 22:46 I totally agree. And most people who visit us from foreign countries spend time in LA or New York, or maybe Florida at Disney World, but there’s a vast opportunity to explore something on a more meandering route through the middle parts of the country. And the West is certainly got a big place in my heart. Richard Miles: 23:04 So Rex final question that will allow you to be a little bit philosophical here, a lot philosophical if you’d like, but being a pioneer researcher sounds really cool to most people, but by definition people in your field or people like you are studying things that haven’t been studied very much and reaching conclusions that may seriously undermine conventional wisdom. So you’re at the age, as you said, where you start getting asked for advice by younger researchers or students or so on, and who may be in the process of picking a career or picking a field, what do you say about that subject or that potential obstacle? That there are a lot of fields now, which they’re going to probably encounter particularly research fields and kind of resistance or criticism of some sort. How do you prepare them for that? That it’s not just all pulling down awards and citations and accolades. Some of it can be serious resistance or criticism. Rex Jung: 23:53 It’s a very good point. And I can’t say that my journey has been peaches and cream throughout the way. I mean, I was told by my graduate advisor, I was studying intelligence at the time that that would destroy my career. I should stop that immediately and pick something more conventional. Otherwise I would not be a successful researcher. I’m glad I didn’t take that advice. It’s good advice. There’s two paths that I’ve seen in being a successful researcher. One is a very deliberate and somewhat obsessive path of just hammering out the details of a concept that has been discovered previously. This is called normal science. And I think a lot of good work comes out of that. And it depends on your personality style. If you’re a very conscientious and somewhat agreeable person, you will do very well in writing grant. After grant, after grant, that gets rejected until the one gets accepted and you can do very good work in that area, but you have to be extremely conscientious and extremely agreeable because it is a field that rewards conformity. There’s another path. And I think it’s the path that I’ve chosen. I may be deluding myself, but it is a path where you really identify what you feel passionate about and what you feel excited about studying. And these are more paradigm shifting ideas or revolutionary ideas from the Thomas Kuhn nomenclature. And it can be very rewarding, but it’s a less successful path. You will always have to fight against opposition and granting and funding agencies that are not willing to take risks. But if you have excitement and passionate about your work and less conscientiousness and agreeable is frankly, you can succeed. And I think I’ve had some measure of success in my career that has been rather unconventional. You should always have in your back pocket studying something conventionally . And you talked about my studies in traumatic brain injury and lupus and schizophrenia, but there should be some passionate involvement with these issues that allow you to go back and forth between your true passion and something that keeps you funded. So I think those are the two major paths for researchers. Neither of them are right or wrong. Both of them involve incredible amounts of work, but one involves something that you really get excited to wake up every day and do. And the other involves being extremely persistent over long periods of time. Richard Miles: 26:29 So your secret is to be unpleasant and annoying. Rex Jung: 26:34 I’m sticking with that. Your words, not mine. Richard Miles: 26:37 I’m sorry. I , I, that was a cheap shot. No, I was going to say Rex. So the way you described it, we interview a lot inventors and entrepreneurs on the show. And when we ask them, like, why did you stick with this idea or this business? And a lot of times they say a version of, you know, if I didn’t believe in it, it would be too hard at a certain point in their journey. They could objectively say or have said to them, this isn’t worth it. And so the number of said across different types of fields that, you know, it’s just resilience. It’s the ability to just hang in there and keep going is what explains my success. Now they’re all a bunch of other factors, obviously that contribute, but at that’s refusal to give up, but not be delusional about it, right? Rex Jung: 27:16 I started to have a trickle of success. And then I had a stream of success. And then I had a flood of success by identifying this area that hadn’t been explored before creative neuroscience and really starting to work the problem. And I felt really passionate about it and no NIH funding out there for that. There’s very little NSF funding. I found the Templeton Foundation, which was willing to fund this crazy idea that I had, and it yielded dozens of publications and other grants. And now a new generation is taking the mantle and really starting to explore the limits of creativity, neuroscience. And I couldn’t be more pleased with my stubbornness. Richard Miles: 27:57 Well, and it really points to the importance of seed funding, right? Again, you see similar parallels in the business world. If one person can manage to make significant progress, then they themselves might not reap all the rewards or the riches, but they have taken the knowledge or taken the research to another level so that other people can then capitalize on that. We had one of our inventors say, you know, the most important thing about a patent is not that you’re going to be able to cash in the patent and get rich, but you have added to the body of knowledge. So you’ve made things in a sense, easier for people coming after you because you’ve solved a piece of the puzzle and they can now use your research to maybe go on and carry that down the road. And once they put it like that, I go, yeah , that makes total sense. Because most researchers who get patents, don’t get rich. Rex Jung: 28:44 I have a patent, I’m not rich. Richard Miles: 28:46 There you go. But yet they know that they have solidly advanced their field of knowledge and that other people can use this in a constructive way, may use in a constructive way. Rex Jung: 28:54 It couldn’t be better said you really are carving out an idea space that you know, that you can’t solve yourself. And that will rely on others to take up the mantle . And I’m very happy in this field and both intelligence and creativity, that a number of people will become excited about this area of research and find it to be productive in terms of their grant applications and scholarly activity. And it’s enormously rewarding to know that I and other people was a part in starting this process. Richard Miles: 29:27 Well, Rex , it’s a great note to end on. And as I said, this is actually just part one of an 18 part series in the lifetimes of Rex Jung, really enjoyed having on the show. I hope we can have you back at some point, I learned a lot and I hope this was fun for you. Rex Jung: 29:39 It was great. Thank you for the opportunity. I really enjoy talking to you in this audience is particularly important with entrepreneurs and idea generators. I think it’s a perfect opportunity. Thanks. Richard Miles: 29:50 Thank you. Outro: 29:52 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Josh McCauley, the founder of COMB, discusses how his innovation could help provide environmentally-friendly housing to 20 million people worldwide that can’t afford to put a roof over their heads. COMB is a new system of construction consisting of interlocking blocks made from recycled plastic, utilizing mankind’s abundance of ecologically damaging plastic waste to provide environmentally sustainable and economically viable housing to everyone. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio: 0:39 Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host James Di Virgilio on today’s episode, we’re going to talk about something that may be controversial. Everyone loves their primary residence. And generally we think of building it out of brick or stone or wood or a variety of other materials that have been used for a long, long time. But what if I told you that using recycled plastic could result in a better home? Not just because it’s economically more efficient, but that it’s actually better. My guest today, Josh McCauley , the founder of COMB is doing just that. And he is here to convince all of us that this is in fact, a reality and a possibility Josh, welcome to the program. Josh McCauley: 1:20 Hey, thanks, James. Happy to be here. James Di Virgilio: 1:21 So tell us about this new system of construction. It’s fascinating to me at first, you look at it and think there’s no way on building a home out of plastic. What is it that you’re doing and how are you doing it? Josh McCauley: 1:31 COMB is a new system of construction that consists of interlocking blocks that are made from the recycled plastic. So the goal is to utilize our abundance of ecologically damaging plastic waste in a long-term application to provide environmentally sustainable and economically viable housing to everyone. James Di Virgilio: 1:49 Walk me through this. What does this look like? Is there a place I can go online to see this, I’m listening today? Are there pictures of what this home may look like? Josh McCauley: 1:57 Uh , yeah. On my LinkedIn profile, there are a couple of pictures up of , uh , renderings and really, I guess the easiest way to describe it would be to picture a honeycomb sort of the basis of the name. The main wall block is a hexagonal shape block. And so all the other blocks sort of are designed around that. And so the overall effect is kind of a honeycomb appearance. James Di Virgilio: 2:19 And so that’s obviously a very strong structure engineering wise. And the idea here, right? You might be thinking, well, what kind of market is this for? Are we talking about the million dollar market? Are we talking about the inch level market? But your idea at least initially is to attempt provide housing to people that basically throughout the world don’t really have housing at all. Josh McCauley: 2:34 Yeah, absolutely. My ultimate target market is the over 20% of humanity that is currently living without adequate housing. 1.6 billion of us not having our fundamental human right met . So any market outside of that is really just sort of a way to get to that market by selling COMB to people that can afford it. I hope to be able to give it to the people that can’t. James Di Virgilio: 2:57 Sure this sort of like the Tom strategy Tom’s shoes once upon a time started as a nonprofit , he sold out of the shoes, but really couldn’t make enough of an impact on giving free shoes to kids in South America. Somebody tells them , Hey, sell the shoes for a profit, take all your profits, pass that onto the kids in South America, you can give them a lot more shoes, right? So you have to have a market. You have to have someone who’s going to buy your products. You can eventually potentially provide these things pro bono or et cetera. So let’s talk about that market. How much does it cost to build a home like this? What would you market this for? Josh McCauley: 3:29 It would really depend on the size because each block would have a certain cost. And so I’m estimating that for a roughly 1000 square foot home. Ideally the cost for those blocks would be under $10,000 and that price would only go down the more of these blocks that I can produce. And so at full-scale sort of global production, I would ideally like this to be the most affordable way to provide housing, maybe even removing that comma from it and not even top out over a thousand dollars. James Di Virgilio: 4:02 And so you mentioned a thousand square foot house, right? For $10,000. So let’s just imagine it’s on a small plot of land. How is this with regards to the durability here? If you live in the state of Florida, you have hurricanes. If you live in the Midwest, you have tornadoes, How strong is this structure? Josh McCauley: 4:17 It’s extremely strong. As you pointed out earlier, that hexagonal shape has so much structural integrity, that it allows each block to basically support the surrounding blocks. So it does away with any need for internal framing of walls. And so there’s nothing in the case of a hurricane for a wind to push between where if you picture a studded wall, your strength is in those studs. And then the cladding between it is all weak point. And even beyond natural disasters, sort of catastrophic events building with wood really doesn’t make any sense to me realizing that we are living in the 21st century wood rots and it warps and bugs eat it. And I believe that especially when it comes to the idea of viewing our collective resource, use the fact that it on average takes nine mature pine trees, standing 80 feet with a two foot diameter to frame out a thousand square feet. It’s much more beneficial to leave that resource as a tree sequestering, carbon filtering, water, producing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide from the environment, then to cut them down, to build usually a highly inefficient structure. So the goal is to turn the attention to what most people would consider pollution. But with the understanding that pollution is nothing but a resource that we’re not currently harvesting and making the best use of. James Di Virgilio: 5:39 All right. So there’s clearly an environmental angle that is here in the history of environmentally advantageous services and products. The initial hurdle overcome is, is it better than what I could already purchase? Is it cheaper than what I could already purchase? It sounds like in your case, you’re suggesting the answer to those two questions course are yes, but the third question is, do I desire it more human nature would tell us that people have to actually desire owning this beyond just their altruistic motive. So in your opinion, when you showed these renderings to people, what is their reaction? Are they excited by this? Do they feel like it’s something they could live in? Is it may be just too far out there for them to grasp living in a home made from plastic? Like what are the reactions to this? Josh McCauley: 6:21 Yeah, I’ve had varying reactions. I would say that nine times out of 10 people are excited by it, which is exciting for me. And there’s always going to be the trailing end of any sort of new technology or innovation of people that are just so conditioned to accepting the way that things are, that they will be the final adopters of a new technology. But overall, I would say that everyone that I’ve shown renderings to and shown models to have found it to be a really exciting idea. And I’m thinking that fundamentally trying to change the way people think about things is much more difficult than showing them a better way of providing some sort of proof of concept. And so that’s sort of where I’m at now with that one out of 10 people is I’ll prove it to you, yeah. James Di Virgilio: 7:13 So Josh, tell me then what does it take to actually have a house we can go look at, Hey, look, I built one. Here it is, go check it out. How far away are you from that? Josh McCauley: 7:21 Ideally I would have one built within the next 18 months. The hurdle that I’m up against at the moment is as I think most entrepreneurs would say is funding and really the major cost and making one of these is actually having the molds made for the blocks. And so once the molds are made, it would only take a few months to produce enough blocks to actually build one. And the building process itself would only take one or two days. James Di Virgilio: 7:49 And these, I imagine are things you could potentially 3D print, correct? Josh McCauley: 7:53 Yes. Actually the scale prototype blocks that I’ve made I 3D printed, the main hurdle with that is the size constraints of how large a block can be printed. And also the amount of time that it takes. I remember when I first got my 3D printer, I had watched a couple of videos online of 3D printing. And then I turned mine on, I started a print and I was kind of taken aback by how slowly it goes. I guess the videos I had seen were maybe a little sped up. And so there’s kind of a trade-off of that technology catching up with something like rotational molding or blow molding that can be done more rapidly. James Di Virgilio: 8:26 So what would it cost you right now? Let’s say, Hey, Josh, I’ve got some funding for you. I want you to build one of these. So the worlds can see it. You said $10,000. I heard that number earlier. Is that the number that it would take to get your first one put somewhere in a physical location? Josh McCauley: 8:39 No, I estimate the with $150,000, I could have all of the molds that are necessary made and a short production run completed. That would allow me to then build one. James Di Virgilio: 8:51 All right . Let’s talk about something very interesting. So you’re involved in building construction , which is at the University of Florida here in Florida, very prestigious program. You yourself, history, education, major. How did you get into construction? How’d you get into this? How did this idea come about? What was the origination of this? Josh McCauley: 9:09 Yeah, well, my education, as far as going to college or anything like that, didn’t really play a part. I left college to be a musician and I did that for about a decade and I don’t know if it was inspiration or motivation, but what spurred all of this on was a really profound dissatisfaction with what I saw happening in the world with a real sense of helplessness and feeling like I personally could not make any sort of effective change and really just channeling that kind of frustration into the idea of solving as many big problems as I could with one solution being overwhelmed by looking at these problems separately, I found that looking at them comprehensively, looking at the wholeness of the situation allowed me to view where they all overlap, whether it’s a lack of adequate housing or plastic pollution or construction waste, or the waste of resources where all of these problems overlap, I think is actually where inventive people can be looking so that maybe we can have less piecemeal solutions to these singular problems that aren’t actually singular, but are interdependent of one another. James Di Virgilio: 10:19 So how did you get the knowledge to be able to build a structurally sound building? Did you have help? Did you seek out other experts? Josh McCauley: 10:27 After I had designed it, yeah. I did speak to some professors of structural engineering at UGA, but it came to me very similarly to when I was playing music, I would hear music in my head and then it was just a matter of making those sounds audible to other people. And with this, it was seeing it. I had just come from a conversation with a good friend of mine, and we were talking about earth ships, which I don’t know if you’re familiar with, it’s a building technique that uses car tires and you have to pound dirt into them, but it provides a highly environmentally friendly and sustainable building technique, but it’s extremely labor intensive and time consuming. So after that conversation, I’d really like to be able to do something like this, but I don’t have three months or really the muscles to beat dirt into a tire with a sledgehammer on the drive home from talking with him, intuition maybe would be the best way to put it, but I didn’t study engineering or anything like that, other than personal interest and quite a variety of topics that all sort of pointed to one thing. James Di Virgilio: 11:30 And so when you went to the structural engineers and you said to them, here’s my idea. I’m going to build this home out of recycled plastic, like a honeycomb shaped, et cetera. Did they tell you that, Oh, absolutely. This can be done and this can be strong. Josh McCauley: 11:43 Yeah. And it really helps having the 3D printed model of the wall structure because you can basically jump up and down on it and push it and pull it and it doesn’t move it can’t move. And so it was definitely an affirming moment, having people that had dedicated their lives to understanding structural integrities, look at this and say that I was onto something. Yeah. James Di Virgilio: 12:04 And had anybody to your knowledge designed honey comb , like structures before these structural engineers that you met with or what you’ve researched on the web, but someone else done something like this before. Josh McCauley: 12:15 Honestly, the closest thing that I’ve ever seen to it would be Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome. And although the geodesic dome is based on what he called 10 Segretti, which is instead of using compression where things are stacked together, he used tension to hold together the dome, but only similar in the sense that he utilized the same sort of geometric principles of structural integrity, especially the hexagonal shape. But to my mind, I haven’t seen any other structures that utilize it quite the way that COMB does. James Di Virgilio: 12:44 Which is pretty fascinating to think that someone outside the construction area has done though. And also not surprising. In fact, most of history’s great innovations have come from people that were not directly involved in the industry itself. Josh, you said you were a musician, you said you’ve done a variety of things. You obviously have a lot of passion about providing housing for people. What has to go right in the next six months to a year for COMB to be able to make this a reality? Josh McCauley: 13:11 Honestly, the only thing holding me back right now is just a lack of funding. What needs to go, right, I guess, is for the right person that has that sort of money be interested, at least almost as interested as I am in making it a reality and finding someone who is also coming from a place of compassion and cooperation over competition, and an understanding of the unity that should exist among humanity and a real sense of as the Buddha would say, there is no other that every single one of those 1.6 billion people without homing is me. And so that’s really what I’m looking for is a partner with the same sort of vision, but also with money. James Di Virgilio: 13:53 Sure. You got to have funding and got to have a team that can get things done, right? Josh, leave us with some words of wisdom. You obviously have dreamt big here. You felt a need to help out your fellow man and woman you are taking on this challenge. There’s lots of other people that have similar thoughts and ideas in a wide variety of things, but perhaps they’re not so bold. What would you say to them since you were embarking on this kind of journey? Josh McCauley: 14:15 I would just impress upon them that we can make the world work for 100% of humanity. We have the technology, we have the resources. And really the only thing that is lacking is the will to implement them is the will to change things that are poorly designed that are a constant hindrance to wholeness and that lead to fragmentation, whether that’s in our society or between man and nature. I think that if a person can maintain, focus on what they can do to help the most people, then it’s just a matter of rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever it is that you have to do to get to that point. James Di Virgilio: 14:58 He is Josh McCauley the founder of COMB, also a finalist for the Cade Prize, which rewards inventors and entrepreneurs for demonstrating a creative approach to addressing problems in the world around us. Of course you have definitely done that. Josh, thank you so much for joining us on the program, Josh McCauley: 15:13 James. Thank you. I really appreciate it. It was great talking with you, really enjoyed it. Outro: 15:18 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio, and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

What happens if you pair artificial intelligence with drones? Among other things you make life easier for tree growers, who can now count, measure, and more efficiently take care of their crop. Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis and Matt Donovan are the developers of Agroview, a Florida startup invention and a 2020 Cade Prize finalist. They explain using basic drone images, Agroview’s AI and data fusion method provides very accurate information on thousands of acres in hours for what normally takes agricultural producers weeks. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:38 Spying on trees, what are they doing out there? It turns out if you pair a drone with artificial intelligence, you’ll find out all their secrets. I’m your host, of Radio Cade. Today my guests are Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis and Matt Donovan of Agroview, a 2020 Cade Prize finalist. Welcome to the show, gentlemen. Matt Donovan: 0:54 Thank you, Richard. Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 0:56 Thank you for having us. Richard Miles: 0:57 So first of all, I have to confess that I’m a sucker for any topic that has the word drone in it. My wife got me a little drone a few years ago and I have to become highly proficient and wasting lots of my time taking pictures pretty much of nothing, but they’re pictures from a thousand feet. So it’s cool. Right? I’m guessing you all have to be slightly more productive with your time and the technology. So why don’t we start Yiannis, if you could describe for us what the core product of Agroview is, which as I understand it marries drones with artificial intelligence to take lots of pictures of trees. So why don’t we just start out? Why trees? What are those pictures tell you? And more importantly, what does it tell the person growing trees who presumably is going to buy this product? Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 1:34 Yeah, that’s a really good question. First of all, let me start from the beginning of Agroview, so there’s some tools, Agroview is a cloud-based application. So actually it’s like a software that analyze and visualize the images from drones, but also for ground based sensing system . So why do we developed Agroview for tree crops and vegetables is because we identify that there’s same gap. There are not so mainly tools and solutions for specialty crops, like tree crops and vegetables, regarding on drones. And then the main idea here is to convert the data that we collect the information to some kind of practical information, useful information that the growers , the managers can use. There are samples for row crops like wheat, soy , bean , cotton , but very limited solutions that are available for specialty crops. That’s why we developed Agroview. And again, the main goal is to convert data. For example, the images that we collect from drones to information, to something that we can really use. Richard Miles: 2:41 So the real secret sauce here is the AI, right? Because obviously drones have been around a while. UAVs have been around and under development getting rapidly better since the nineties. And I’ve heard about all these potential applications, including agriculture. It never thought exactly how’s that going to work? So Matt is this sort of the first time, or you are the first company to actually take the idea of using AI algorithms. You have these images, which we’ve been able to get for a long time. And actually as Yiannis said, do something practical with them. Matt Donovan: 3:11 Well, I think as Yiannis mentioned in some of the more popular crop or more attended crops like corn or wheat, there’ve been utilizations of this, but in the specialty crop market, like citrus almonds, like specialty tree, fruit crops, not so much. And that lack of attention of providing AI tools is really the gap that Yiannis mentioned before. So while we’re not the first to try it, I think in the specialty crop market, we’re the first to really prove that what the Agroview platform does. Yiannis and his team have actually gone through the large scale commercial test. It’s not a lab specific, it’s not a controlled environment and they’ve published openly the results that Agroview achieves. And that’s something that’s novel and unique about the Agroview platform is that it’s really gone through the scientific rigor that a lot of products will make claims that often they can’t prove. So in that respect, we look at it as the first platform. That’s proven the ability to take data from a drone, but also to take data from ground sensing systems and then have the AI sort of crunch everything together. And as Yiannis said to take multiple layers of data, but then produce a valuable piece of information, which the grower can then use to take action on and ultimately starts to get into the business impact that information then turns into actionable intelligence as it were. And hence our agriculture intelligence, the name of the company had come about is to have Agroview, create actionable intelligence that makes a business impact, but something else that’s a grander vision of Yiannis is to start making impacts to the ecosystems that are around the growing environment and the environment in a longer view and in a more grand scale to create sustainability in those growing regions. Richard Miles: 5:07 So one thing that impressed me when I watched the video of Agroview and the product that you have in the market is just merely knowing how many trees say citrus trees. For example, you have, it’s a valuable piece of information to get, I guess, crop insurance for a number of different reasons. And to note where your gaps are, where you might have a row of trees aren’t doing well, but Agroview does more than that, right? I mean, it doesn’t just count trees and say, okay, you’re missing four trees or three trees there. There, there are other things that you capture about the health of the crop itself or that how the plant is doing that, I guess, affects decisions on fertilizing or whatever. So Yiannis, how does that work? You mentioned ground sensors as well in order for this to work to its maximum capability, you’re pairing a UAV with cameras and are you also then deploying an array of ground sensors so you can capture other data like how tall the crop is or how it is, is that how it works? Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 5:58 So with the dome , we can collect a lot of information, as you said, we can count crops, plants, which is very important and we can detect gaps, income gaps, and also develop a stress index. And we can also estimate plant nutrient concentration, which is very important for a precision fertilizer application. Matt Donovan: 6:20 And that’s using the UAV imagery, Richard. Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 6:23 Yeah, the UAV spectrum of data, which we really collect from my multi-spectral camera imaging. So doing that, you develop these maps, that they have different zones with different colors and these maps can be applicable or they can be used by precision and variable rate fertilizers. And that means there’s a variability in the field. So you don’t need to apply the same chemicals. The same inputs in general, it can be anything else can be water to the crops, but you applied based on the need. And this is where the savings comes. And this is how we can also try to reduce any negative environmental impacts . So we apply in this case, fertilizers as needed to the specific areas. We can even go down to the climate level. This is what we do with drone images, but on the same time we can analyze data collected from, for example, sprayers and fertilizers that we are developing new smart technologies, sprayers, and fertilizers that at the same time that they spray, they collect data that we convert back into information and example can be, we can also detect and count trees , but also assess the health that can be connected with the data collected from drones and all this information can be used also for yield prediction, which is a very important task for logistic purposes. Matt Donovan: 7:47 So the drone imagery is an input into Agroview. The application map is an output from Agroview into the field for sprayers. But when the sprayers are spraying, we equip smart sprayers with additional data collection items that then become inputs that creates a richer and more detailed set of inputs for the agroview system to assess, which makes it much smarter. And the amount of data that we start to look at as inputs coming into Agroview that the artificial intelligence algorithm is dealing with starts to be massive. But that’s the whole point. Precision agriculture is making that impact of taking those individual units of data, whether they come from a drone or they come from collecting from the sprayer, which is a nice dual use, right? It’s an output from Agroview, but we also utilize it as a smart opportunity for us to collect more information, to then provide additional details for the AI to assess. And it creates a richer set of information moving forward, and it builds and builds and builds. It goes from 2D in the air to 3D on the ground. And the collection of that data over time gives us a 40 view over the course of time that really sets Agroview apart. Richard Miles: 8:58 So that’s really kind of the beauty of AI, right? It’s not like you have a bunch of smart coders. They write a great program and then it has to be constantly updated by smart coders. The AI kind of gets smarter on its own just because you’re getting this massive inputs of different types of data. And you’re combining your interests solution. Matt Donovan: 9:13 Terrific point. It’s almost a fully automated platform in that sense. Richard Miles: 9:18 Several months ago, I talked to the president of the National 4H Council and she was telling me the history of agricultural technology goes way back to really Abraham Lincoln, who founded that land grant college system. And as a requirement, it made the sharing of agricultural technology widespread. And one of the great results of that is that farmers have generally always been early adopters of technology because they recognize the value right away because it affects their costs. It affects their ability to successfully harvest crops. And so on, Matt maybe you can take this, what sort of reaction have you gotten from? I’m sorry, I just got to use the pun from farmers outstanding in their field. Are they reacting to this like, Oh, this is great or do they still have questions or a little bit of skepticism or their cost issues involved is just an intense capital investment Say in Agroview or similar technologies, or what kind of feedback are you getting from them? Matt Donovan: 10:11 Well, the farmers are certainly looking for the proof they are adopters, but as a customer persona, if you will, they’re very much proof in hand. And certainly be honest, works directly with a lot of growers who have seen the Agroview system. And it can give you some feedback. I think from a market perspective, they’re looking for proof. They will adopt the Agroview system itself is in keeping with a lot of the way that their products are priced on a per acre basis. So we’ve adopted kind of the norm of what they follow with pricing to try to show them that value. So far, there’s a little bit of wanting to calibrate what Agroview is able to produce using UAV imagery or ground collected data with what they already know. The beauty of the system, actually in that large scale, scientifically proven test was a commercial plot and it was ground truth by Yiannis and the team, the published paper that was done took into account the ground reality often referred to as ground truthing methods to compare it to what the UAV collected images were. So what we’re finding is if the growers give us the chance, we can show them that the data that’s collected via the drone alone is very comparable to the information they see on the ground and in the palm of their hand, as it were lots of work to go, but that’s what we’ve seen so far. And the good news is the algorithm is very accurate with regards to that. So I think what they they’re seeing out of the Agroview system pairs up nicely with this sort of healthy skepticism of should I adopt and get these promised c osts savings. And the reality is, is very positive results, but also with a pinch of making sure that they are putting money into an advanced technology, that’s going to be as good as what they can see and feel on the ground. They’re very intuitive. The data element is actually something that I think really is an added element for them b ecause growers are extraordinarily intuitive about what’s going on in their fields. But that data element I believe is, is the gap that we’re really filling in the market. Richard Miles: 12:23 So that’s a really good point, Matt, and give me a feel for what in best case scenario, if a grower adopts the technology uses it correctly, there are no malfunctions, what are the potential cost savings to them? And I guess as a corollary of that question, what’s the next best alternative, because as you said, growers have highly intuitive sense of how their crops are doing, what would prevent a skeptical grower from saying like, look, this looks really cool and snazzy, but you know, honestly I can get my truck and in an hour drive around my fields and get the same info. What are the magnitude of cost savings? Obviously that would take a lot of time driving around and doing it in person. What is your value proposition in a best case scenario, Matt Donovan: 13:01 Let me break it into sort of three components. One is , is that these tree counts are critically important for a lot of decisions that they will make. But tree count is also a regulatory requirement in order for a grower like a citrus grove, for example, to get crop insurance through the USDA, they have to do an inventory. And so right now the current method of trying to count trees is a couple of dudes jump in a truck, an old dusty truck, probably with no air conditioning and a couple of clickers like handheld clickers. And they drive up and down each of the rows, clicking on the right, clicking on the left. Now, as far as that process or method is used, it’s extraordinarily error prone, a hot summer in Florida to try to keep your concentration in a hot humid orange grove in Florida in the middle of the summer is not an easy task. Um , and it’s also very carbon heavy, which gets into the environmental impact. But from a practical perspective, a thousand acres of survey manually costs $15,000 and takes four to six weeks from the Agroview perspective we’re in and out of that same thousand acres in two or three days, no truck touches any of the inner parts of the grove. So it’s carbon neutral and the information is so much more accurate. So just on the tree count alone, we have proven 99 plus percent accuracy. So just on the practical side of getting insurance and account, that piece of it is there. Of course, the health statistics, the height of the tree, the canopy, the stress, and the overall health of the tree goes towards a much richer mosaic of information for the grower there. And then the decision between the tree count and the health qualifications, if you will starts to factor in what they’re considering potential yield, but the tree count and its accuracy becomes so important to any formula that they’re using. It’s a highly weighted variable. I mean, plug in the wrong tree count and into whatever estimating formula that they’re using, whatever method that they might be using tree count can throw off what they may think is coming at harvest by a lot, one degree off now means way off in the future. The nutrient analysis, probably the biggest impact. And that’s something that on a qualified costs, the Agroview system is going to just absolutely make something that’s 90%, less than cost . I mean, it’s massive savings. And the methodology for us to do nutrient analysis is so comprehensive because it accounts for the whole field, which right now they utilize a very expensive lengthy time process to collect leaf samples, send it off to the laboratory. Again, us flying for a thousand acres in two days is what takes weeks and weeks in tens of thousands of dollars just to render the information that the Agroview system can produce within 48 to 72 hours. Richard Miles: 15:58 Wow. That’s quite impressive. Yiannis, are there any technical limitations in terms of other types of applications that this could be used for? Like for instance, right now you’re going after specialty crops like citrus trees, for instance, could this be used for cattle? For instance, I had a guest on a couple of weeks ago talking about the next generation of beyond visual line of sight UAV that can travel much farther distances and could a Texas cattle rancher who has a gazillion acres and thousands of heads of cattle could eventually this sort of technology be used for them to keep track of the cattle and the health of the cattle and so on, or is this really limited to stationary crop ? Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 16:37 Yeah, that’s a really good question before I answer this and let me emphasize a little bit with tree count. And I just want to make clear here that this is very important especially for Florida because of citrus greening growers got to remove a lot of the trees. That’s why they don’t really know how many trees they have in specific blocks before it was easier that you put it that way. You know that you have maybe 10 acres, you planted 160, let’s say the record. So you can estimate. But now with the greening, citrus greening, you might have 50% of them may be gaps. So there’ll be trees that they h ad to remote, right? So this is also another potential. You need to know how many gaps you have. You need to know if you want to r eplant, so how many trees you need to go order from a nursery. So that’s why tree detection is our first task, different AI models. I t’s not just a simple AI. I usually say that has different levels of intelligence. So going back to your question, y ou a re totally right. What we try to do with, w ith other crops like tomatoes, s quash, watermelon, w e even try to detect diseases. At the early stage, early disease development stage, which is the most critical. So to detect t he disease with no visual symptoms on very small symptoms, this is the critical step. I know a lot of growers spray proactively just to be sure that there will be no infection, but sometimes a re infections. T here a re diseases. So if you detect that, t he early stages can save a lot of money. You can control, you take the best management tactics, and then you can control the disease. Before that spreads throughout the field that can save you a lot of money. We’ve seen examples t hat a d isease can totally d estroyed the entire crop. So now about the cattle, we can do something similar, like how we develop AI based models to detect diseases in crops. We can do something similar with lifestock, using drones, using g round-based sensing systems. We can, first of all, identify individual animal and then collect some information. And actually we have a different project that we develop wearable devices, smart devices, to collect information from individual animal. It can be a horse, it can be cattle. So connected that with, as you said, d rone i maging, it can really help and you can develop a fully automated system. Again, like Agroview that analyze o f the data because the beauty actually comes from there. We can collect huge amount of data, but what you really do, the data is important part, r ight? In this case, if you have r eminds o f like hundreds of thousands of images, this is the big data issue, right? That’s why you need big data analytics. That’s why you need AI. It’s very difficult for t he human brain to understand and analyze big data. But using AI, you can simplify and automate this process and you can have the critical information at the end, let’s say t hat t his i s detection o r something like that in almost in real time or in mer real time. And this is the goal right now. This is where w e’re going. W e a re not going to stay only for, let’s say crops, but we’re developing similar technologies for livestock in general. Richard Miles: 20:04 That’s really fascinating. I mean, as you said, the problem no longer really is the ability to collect data. We have all sorts of ways we can collect data. It’s what do you do with the data and the masses of data that you’re going to get and turn that into something very useful. I’m glad to hear that you are looking at livestock, just one story of the world we live in. Now we have a goofy little cat who just would disappear all the time. So we finally got him a pet tracker, right way too big for him it is made for a dog. It looks kind of ridiculous, but it turns out when we went live with this, the first time we got it, it was hilarious. Cause our son was in the Navy out in Guam and our daughter was in Hawaii, working in a hotel out there. And the night it went live, we all were watching from around the world. What’s this cat going to do was going about 11 or 12 miles a day. I mean, just all over place. And we could see where he was in the neighborhood. And so I’m sure you’re going to go after more than just the cat market. Cattle is much more lucrative than house cats, but you know, I had to step back and go. This is amazing that people scattered around the world can all look at where this little house cat is going. And imagine now what you can do with information wearables, for livestock and collecting obviously much more than just your location, all sorts of metrics on their health and so on. Matt Donovan: 21:12 Well, it really points to the name Agroview really comes from all of the precision agriculture you need in one view. So like you and your family watching your cat would be akin to whether it’s a grower or a livestock operation, to be able to see that information in one view, that is what the Agroview system is. As Yiannis said, trying to crunch through all that data and then present it in the case of most of this, which is kind of a map driven view, a map driven interface that you can get those stats 11 miles a day, that your cat was going. Probably might’ve been accompanied by a little map if it had it, if all of its little travels. So again, it’s simplifying massive data into a very understandable view that can be seen by not just you and your four family members, but it could be multiple team members of the farm operation. All of them can have access to it the same way that you don’t have to be in the same place, but that data is provided in one view, the Agroview as it were. Richard Miles: 22:14 So one of the things we find really interesting on Radio Cade is I always like to kind of know a little bit about the background of the inventors and entrepreneurs that we talk to because they’ve all have very interesting paths to the invention or the business. So Yiannis, let’s start with you. You’re currently an assistant professor at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural. Sciences, otherwise known as IFAS, but you’re originally from Greece and you move to the United States about 10 years ago. You know , I’m just curious, what were your first impressions of the United States and just want to turn around and go home. And then after that, how did you make your way to studying agriculture? Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 22:45 Okay. Moving to the US in 2010, I was at the Washington State University. So I had an opportunity to join a team, a really good team, as a postdoc research associate. And I think beginning and need some time to readjust that it was a totally different lifestyle, but I love it. And I liked the team and we work also developing precision ag technologies and they like the culture here and the connection between the universities and the industry where you really enjoy to develop technology . So applied research and develop new technologies that someone in really use. So after that, I moved to California, was the assistant and associate professor at the Engineering Department at the Cal State system. In 2017, I moved at the University of Florida at them Agriculture and Biological Engineering Department as an assistant professor. And then here in all these three States, I work with specialty crops. So tree crops and vegetables. Yeah . I really love my job. I think we have a lot of opportunities to develop new smart technologies and especially utilizing AI. So overall I’m super happy here. I enjoy my job and I love it. So no complaints at all. Richard Miles: 24:04 And Yiannis did this run in the family where your parents involved in agriculture at all in any capacity? Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 24:10 Yeah, my grandparents, for example, they were farmers. My father was not a farmer, but he also likes to grow grapes, make wine. So I grew up in a small family . I always liked also engineering. Let’s say I like to build stuff and this two came together. So that’s why ag engineering. Richard Miles: 24:31 So it sounds like from an early age, you kind of had a fascination with the idea of growing things and studying that, or was there a particular moment that you remember in school that you’re like, wow, this is really cool. I want to know more about this. Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 24:42 I would say that it was mostly building or developing things. I remember even when I was like five, seven, ten, any project that I had to build something, it was like really something that I enjoy . So starting from there, then I like mathematics programming. That makes it very easy for me to follow this path. And of course, as I grew up, I knew about agriculture. It’s very important. We need food, we cannot live without food. So. Richard Miles: 25:10 We can’t live without wine ether Yiannis, Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 25:13 Thats true, especially the Greeks. Richard Miles: 25:15 So Matt let’s turn to you. You come from a different background. You’re currently the CEO of Agricultural Intelligence, which is a company that is taking Agroview to market. And you come mostly from a business background, but tell us about your path. Where were you born and raised and how did you get into the business arena? Matt Donovan: 25:29 Well, I’m a native Floridian. I was born in South Florida. I was raised in the West Palm beach area. I lived there for the majority of my young life and after I got married and had a job opportunity, I moved to Gainesville, Florida where I reside today. I had grown up in a small business. My father ran a small business. So as much as growing wine or grapes and attending to crops, might’ve come somewhat through Yiannis background, mine was more of a growing up in a family that ran a business. I went to the standard things. I graduated college, started working in the corporate world and got married and found a place to live here in Gainesville, Florida. So I’m a native Floridian and got involved in various corporate work. And after a decent career doing that, I , I started my own management consulting company. And after I was doing a management consulting engagement, I came up with an idea for a piece of software. And so I wrote the piece of software myself, and it became a part of the telecommunications area. And I ran that company for 15 years and I am now lacking the coding skills required, but thankfully folks like Yiannis are much more talented in those areas. So that’s my side of bringing some healthy background as an entrepreneur and the corporate work that I’ve got to try to lead the business side of Agriculture Intelligence and bring Agroview to market. Richard Miles: 26:52 It sounds like a great partnership that you have going and perfect segue to talk about where you are now as a company, you’ve made a lot of progress. It seems like in the last year, in addition to becoming a Cade Prize finalist, you were one of the outstanding entries that we had this year. You’ve gotten a number of other awards and recognitions. Where are you as a company right now? And what are your next steps? So for instance, how many employees do you have and are you raising money or give us a snapshot of where you are in the life cycle of Agricultural Intelligence and Agroview as a product. Matt Donovan: 27:20 Yeah. As a product were kind of that pre-revenue just starting to accumulate some sales. As I mentioned before, the growers are still vetting and calibrating the technology and trying to adopt that we’re competing for several larger contracts, which will be good for growth. The natural revenue growth, we are seeking funding still officially. There’s a small team of four that are mostly oriented around moving the product forward and sales. So it’s a relatively small team, but we’re looking to rapidly grow over the next year. So any healthy investors that want to do a proven product, we’re out here to have a conversation with. Richard Miles: 27:57 Well, I can tell you one story you probably will enjoy. It was about probably a little over 10 years ago, a company similar to yours, they’re in the software space, but in healthcare for employees in the same building you’re in right now, Matt in the innovation hub, they’ve done very, very well. And they’re getting ready to have a very successful exit to very, very soon. So I’ve seen it happen. It can be done for sure. Along those lines. I’d like to ask both of you, you’ve got enough experience under your belts now in taking this idea, as far as you have, you’re not done yet. You’re still in the middle of the journey, but it’s the legions of other researchers and entrepreneurs out there. What sort of advice would you dispense at this point to them? Like for instance, are there any mistakes that you’ve made that you think, you know, I wish somebody had told me about this, or why didn’t somebody warn me about this particular obstacle that I might encounter? So Yiannis, why don’t we start with you? Any regrets or any wisdom or advice you would dispense to maybe someone about a decade behind you wanting to do the same thing? Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 28:53 Sure . I had another startup at Washington State University. We had a really good idea and actually the growers tried to motivate us, to commercialize the technology that we developed and offer it as a service to the grower. There’s something similar happened with Agroview the mistake was that we thought two of us actually, that we can also run the company. We have our, day jobs that as a professor or researchers. And we thought that, okay, maybe at the same time we can build and run the company, it was a huge mistake. We didn’t have the time. Sometimes we didn’t even have the time to answer the calls or emails. This time I was like, no, I’m not going to make this mistake. I need to find a great guy who ran a really good company and good CEO. And I was very lucky to meet with Matt. So I think, yeah, that was one of the mistakes. I will never forget. We cannot do everything. So we need to identify what our skills, what our capabilities and then partner with others, Richard Miles: 29:50 It’s a valuable mistake and a valuable lesson to learn. And it’s actually occurs more often than you would think. Researchers thinking like, well, how hard can it be to take this idea to market? Cause it’s a great idea. And almost invariable . It is a great idea, but that getting it to market and getting it capitalized and so on is, is tough road. And uh , a lot of people don’t make it. Matt, how about you? You’re in the business world by definition to sort of they’re winners or losers or ups and downs. Tell us a little bit about what lessons you learned. Matt Donovan: 30:17 I think the list of mistakes that I’ve made is so much greater than, than that. I would just actually focus on something. When I was in the corporate world, I was lucky to have someone who mentored me and of the various lessons as sort of a younger business person, was something that my mentor said was contribute every day. Find a way to make a contribution sometimes it’s to yourself. But if you’re contributing, you’re often making something actionable. That’s tied to someone else’s goals. And often you don’t realize it when you’re younger, contributing to other’s goals are actually the most important thing you can do to achieving the overall goals and ultimately any organization, any products, every company is comprised of people, the actions they take. And those two things are normally something that every single day you need to contribute to. So I sort of took that on as a life lesson that I believe helped me maybe avoid more mistakes than I would have made otherwise. And occasionally I look for those nice days where making that contribution every single day and the discipline of trying to contribute to every day kind of adds up over time. And the old saying is it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And making a contribution is, are literally each step you take in that marathon. So make a contribution every day, some way, find a way to make a contribution and keep going. That’s the essence of it. Richard Miles: 31:57 That’s great advice. Yiannis and Matt, you guys are doing great. I want to congratulate you again for the success you’ve had so far. You do have a great idea. I do think that you will succeed because I think you’ve done a lot of thinking about this and where the need is and how this is going to be used. So I look forward to having you back on your show after you’ve had your half billion dollar exit or whatever, whatever that can be. How about when you do your IPO, right? We’ll have you back on the show and you can tell us some more lessons, but I want to thank you both for your time and wish you the best . Matt Donovan: 32:24 Thank you. Richard. Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 32:25 Thank you Richard. Outro: 32:28 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Unmanned aerial vehicles started out as a military technology, but now have applications in fields like agriculture, surveying, search and rescue, pipeline monitoring, emergency response, infrastructure inspection, and disaster relief. Trevor Perrott, CEO and co-founder of Censys Technologies, explains what it’s like to start and run an aerospace startup company, and its market niche in Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drones. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:38 Unmanned aerial vehicles started out as a military technology, but are now used in agriculture, surveying, search and rescue, pipeline, monitoring, emergency response, infrastructure inspection, and disaster relief. Welcome to Radio Cade . I’m your host Richard Miles. Today, my guest is Trevor Perrott, CEO, and co-founder of a UFA company called Censys Technologies in Daytona Beach, Florida. Welcome to Radio Cade, Trevor. Trevor Perrott: 1:02 Thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity and the platform. Richard Miles: 1:06 So, I was getting a little bit of research on UAVs and I’m going to let you correct me to see how much, if it’s I , I get right or wrong, but UAV’s or drones is a lot of people refer to them now. And this dictatology has surprisingly been around a while in one form another, going back to the mid 19th century, 1849, when the Austrians used balloons loaded up with explosives to attack Venice. And then the concept was further developed also during war time, world war one, world war two, but it wasn’t really until the 1990s and two thousands that UAV’s started taking off so to speak. So now, we’re at the point where Amazon can make drone deliveries of small packages, consumers, and I’m guessing one day my pizza and beer will arrive the same way in the backyard, should be great. But my point is that this has grown to be an incredibly competitive market. So tell us where Censys is positioned in the market. What are your current line of products and how do you plan to grow and succeed and what has got to be a huge and rapidly growing market? Trevor Perrott: 2:02 Well, the only thing I’m going to correct you on is that Amazon still can’t deliver packages. At least not at mass market. They’ve got some limited approvals to do some trial runs, but there’s still quite the problem still exists. And proving, we call resilient communications, resilient, UAS operations. A lot of those mass market opportunities hinge on something that we call it, BVLOS, which is actually an acronym that stands for Beyond Visual Line of Sight. So BVLOS, kind of slurring it a little bit then to BVLOS, that’s kind of where Censys position. We’re in a very small segment of companies that has onboard detect and avoid technology, which what that does is our drones are able to look across the sky and identify potential collisions and then avoid those collisions before they encroach what’s called a near miss. So, what was that to about a 4,000 feet or so is generally what we call a near miss. I think a lot of people kind of struggle with that spatial understanding that 4,000 feet is not a lot when objects are moving at hundreds of miles an hour. So it sounds big, but I promise that’s actually really close and the three dimensions, so where we’re at is aggregating all those technological pieces together. So mass market package delivery isn’t going to happen until communications are reliable and collisions are extremely unlikely, mitigated, almost in full . So that’s where we’re at. Richard Miles: 3:40 So Trevor, just so I understand this correctly, it sounds like your line of UAVs are built and designed for much longer journeys than say some of the UAVs that people are used to seeing now that like say a construction company will use to fly around a building or even a farmer will use to survey of field and then critical to that is obviously the communications the entire time. Who are some of your clients? I don’t need company names, sort of like sectors or types of companies. What are the end users look like for your line of UAVs ? Trevor Perrott: 4:09 So far, we’ve been selling a lot into the energy industry vertical, which includes the enterprise energy companies, as well as you can imagine, those enterprises have dozens of industrial service providers. So there are two main clientele in that market segment. We also very similarly, when you look at other verticals, construction or engineering firms, corporate agriculture is another big vertical. I think one of the things that I answered in the questionnaire is that the biggest thing that impresses me every day is that just application after application, after application keeps coming around , we just sold the drone it’s going to be used for low atmospheric weather research, which is something we had not done before. We’re selling several to validate different types of communications equipment. So it’s not necessarily performing a data acquisition mission, as you would think of it like taking pictures or video, it’s more proving that you can actually communicate in a reliable fashion. Richard Miles: 5:13 Got it. So this year 2020, which we’re recording this episodes have been a tough year for a lot of companies, but for you all, it appears that it’s been pretty good in the sense that you’ve hit a couple of big milestones. I saw you got a grant from the Florida Israel innovation partnership, and then also significant investment later in the year from the venture fund. Tell us, what does the grant that you got for the Florida Israel partnership? It was to develop a communications platform, right? Something like that. Give us a few details about that. Trevor Perrott: 5:41 Sure. So the grant was a little bit about the program. It’s an into stimulate economic activity between Florida and Israel. And we had an existing supplier that made a piece of communications hardware that we were using in the UAV. But some weaknesses with the current state-of-the-art are different frequencies will get blocked out by different things. For example, some frequencies get highly absorbed by vegetation because vegetation contains a lot of water. Other frequencies do not do well with terrain. They cannot bounce over Hills and mountains. So what we’re doing with mobile ACOM is developing a resilient communication system. That’s closer to frequency agnostic. And what that means is if you have frequency, A, B, a nd C, the same information is being shot down all three, but on the receiving end if you got a third of the message on frequency, a, a third on B and a third on C , we can actually rejoin all of those pieces and still get the information on the other side. So it’s just a way of reducing data loss over long range communications. Which are going to be key to making UAV’s stay for i n commercially viable. Richard Miles: 7:04 Tell me what the partnership looks like. Do members of your team, are they in Israel or vice versa or the Israelis over in , Daytona Beach? Is this real time limited? Is this an agreement that you’ll work together for a certain amount of time, or is this indefinite where you’re working on a product development or software development that will eventually result in some sort of end use? Trevor Perrott: 7:23 The end goal here is that our teams in Daytona Beach and Mobili Comms team is near Tel Aviv and Israel. And we’re kind of, co-developing what will eventually be a communications product. So this is not just R and D for fun. And it’s R and D to commercial lots . Richard Miles: 7:42 Trevor, if you could just, for the benefit of our listeners, what are some applications that either you’re doing now or you think are possible say in the next couple years that are intuitively obvious to people in terms of applications of UAVs or drones. Trevor Perrott: 7:56 There’s really starting to be a huge opening and environmental applications. So a lot of people don’t realize this, but the petroleum industry has tremendous problems with leaks in the pipelines. And it’s not just fluids, it’s gases . So how can you cost effectively patrol millions of miles of infrastructure and get an idea for where our methane leaks coming from? How much is it leaking? What’s going to be the cost to fix it. The current workflow is drive a truck down the right away and look for defects. That doesn’t sound that expensive, but when you carry that over, as I said, millions of miles, that’s one that I think is really interesting to see. So there are certain payloads, we call them sniffer payloads. They literally have air pass through them looking for different compounds. And from empirical data, you can kind of draw a line between, okay, if I saw this many parts per million at this distance, from the pipeline, then the leak is approximately X pounds of methane an hour. Richard Miles: 9:06 Wow. That’s fascinating. Does this sort of capability, even in theory, could you do it over an underwater pipeline as well as a way to detect leakage? Or is that a little bit beyond the horizon at this point? Trevor Perrott: 9:16 So underwater applications, there’s a lot of challenges. First of all, underwater communications is just a pain. You typically get stuck using extremely low frequency communications. And as you can get information from A to B, but you can’t get very much. So the higher, the frequency, typically the higher, the data rate, the lower, the frequency, the further away you can speak, but the less you can send at a time think morse code versus a phone call to kind of give you an analogy. So gas leaks, underwater, the gases do not disperse the water on the same way they do in the air, different fluid rules if you will. Richard Miles: 9:55 Trevor, let’s talk a little bit about the company, your development of it. I noticed in August, you got a pretty significant investment from a venture fund in Florida. What part of your day, what part of your week is spent now talking to investors and as opposed to your engineers, is that a big part of your job now is finding that capital as your company starts expanding? Trevor Perrott: 10:14 Well, I believe I’m probably in the minority of CEOs where as part of the transaction that you’re referring to, we got a couple of new directors that are just absolute all-stars and have really lightened my load in the pursuit of other sources of capital. So that freed me up, the name of the game for me is racking the revenue number as high as I can. And one of the things about this kind of a business where it does take investment capital to get it going is that capital gets capital is the name of it. So if you can get the investor capital, then you can get the revenue. If you get the revenue the nation, you have more investor capital. And then the, so goes the engine, but kind of like a pull start on a lawnmower if you never get the first spark. And it’s kind of hard to, because of the turnover. Richard Miles: 11:03 Well , you are in an enviable position because the common complaint from a lot of startup CEOs is that here you are spending 90% of your time in design development, doing that first prototype, and then boom, you make it big. And all of a sudden that CEO has got to be on the road, hustling to get the resources, to develop the company and keep going. And it’s a little bit of shock because it’s a different world entirely. So the fact that you have some board members that can help you do that is fantastic because otherwise you would hit a sort of design and production bottom up pretty quickly. If one person is trying to do it all. I’d really like to explore a bit about your development as an entrepreneur, because clearly it sounds like you know what you’re doing and learned quite a bit. You’re a relatively young guy. Of course, the older I get, everyone looks a little bit younger to me. So you’re probably not as young as I think you are, but you started and founded and running a mid-sized company now. Tell us about your journey as an entrepreneur. I know you grew up in a small town in Illinois in the middle of a cornfield as he put it, and your dad was a carpenter. Your mom was a teacher and you learned how to mill metal from your grandfather. So tell us about that experience growing up, how you think it shaped you in terms of who you are now growing up in that hands-on environment. And bonus question is, were you a good student in school? So I know it’s a big question, but lets start there. Trevor Perrott: 12:12 Let me hit the bonus question first, if you measure by my grades alone, I was an excellent student, but if I’m being honest, I would say, no, I wasn’t. And what I’m getting at with that is I would feel that generally speaking, I was blessed with a pretty sharp mind and I never had to study, never had do this, just did not have to put in nearly as much effort to yield the same result as some of my classmates. And I’m not saying that to boast. I’m saying that as when I got to college, it kind of kicked my butt because I went straight from high school into engineering school and it was night and day. So coming back to the other points that you asked about the hands-on environment, I think was very essential to who I am. It may terrify some people, but I’m going to say it anyway. You would be amazed at how many people will not just get into engineering school, but graduated, still having never changed the oil on the car. And what I’ve learned is that that basic skillset of having to fix things, having to build things, whatever is not something that’s natural. So in the business context, I’ve had to be extremely selective about the people that they come into the organization. And a lot of it has been focused on. Have you ever built something before? Have you ever had to do the colloquial square peg in the round hole problem and were you successful? So, the nice thing about being in a cornfield I guess, is that you get to experiment with a bunch of things that you wouldn’t be able to do in the city environment. I’m a piro at heart. I love to blow things up. And I think doing that in the country is a blessing you can’t pick up in the study environment. Richard Miles: 14:03 Are your grandfather and father still living? Trevor Perrott: 14:06 My father is, my grandfather passed a few years ago. Richard Miles: 14:09 Had you already you started the company before your grandfather passed away? Trevor Perrott: 14:13 About a year before he died. Yes. Richard Miles: 14:15 Alright. I’m sure he must’ve been very proud to see that sort of hands-on training come to fruition. Number of years later. Trevor Perrott: 14:21 You got to hear about several failures and that first year, how much prompting was there? I’m not sure. Richard Miles: 14:27 Well, grandparents are usually good at hiding their worries. So maybe he was worried, but in the end you certainly proved them right in starting and running your own company, Trevor, what have been your biggest surprises? What were your expectations when you founded the company and then what would have been those big surprises ? Is there anything you’ve looked back on and said, man, I was totally wrong about that. And then if you’d like to share any big failures early on, and what did you learn from them? Trevor Perrott: 14:50 So cards on the table, this is the first venture back company that I have been involved with. And I would say the biggest weakness that I walked in with that I think I’ve turned into a strength is I was actually really weak in finance. I did not have a lot of understanding about how to control and articulate financial mechanisms to get a particular objective accomplished. I kind of have taken myself to school a little bit on corporate finance, a lot of reading, a lot of textbook greeting on corporate finance and one of the most important lessons, curve balls, that I’d say hit me definitely the first year and a half of the company is you have to be extremely judicious on who you allow to advise you. Because one of the things that I’ve learned is that I was actually getting fed a lot of what makes perfect sense, but it’s still not true about how to start this kind of a company . The best example I have for that is that the first business plan I ever read from this company said, I’m going to need about two and a half million dollars of capital. I’m going to need three years and it is impractical and hazardous to try and do it a different way. And what I found myself getting into was we raised capital $25,000 at a time. And we were in this perpetual cycle of a little bit of revenue, a little bit of investor capital and the peace meal, very, very nearly killed us. So I think that the big lesson for me is you really got a stick to your guns about there is a minimum amount of capital you need to get going and don’t put your customers on the hook if you can’t get a hold of it. So that’s something that was definitely a learning experience for me . Richard Miles: 16:46 So one thing that founders of companies get asked to do, and certainly a successful companies is to speak to students and you probably already have had that experience. But if you haven’t, you will soon, whether it’s a bunch of bright high school students or engineering or business students in college, what would be some pearls of wisdom that you would dispense if you have somebody similar, like it’s say a first-year engineering student at some university is saying, wow, I really admire what you’ve done. I want to do something like that. What would be your advice from that angle? Say a bright 12th grader or a freshman or sophomore at an engineering or a business program at a university? Trevor Perrott: 17:20 Well, believe it or not, I don’t have a whole lot of great things to say, because to do the kind of company that I did, it was very capital intensive. The things we sell are expensive, which is good, except you also need a lot of capital to build it in the first place. So what that really means is I think I commented to you in the questionnaire that you got to do things like take a second mortgage on your house and max out your card. And I do not come from a bunch of money, but I’m the son of the teacher and a carpenter. Now I know there are people in this world that are far worse off than I am. Well , let’s just say we weren’t sitting on 2 million in cash to put into a business endeavor . So you have to walk into this and you have to really, really ask yourself, will I literally bet the farm to do this? And if the answer is no, then don’t start, don’t waste anybody else’s time, including your own, because you can always make more money, but time when it’s gone, it’s gone. So some of the risks that I took or so large and still continued to be pretty big actually, then I’m just not so sure that it’s for everybody. And I think our culture, we like to glorify entrepreneurship a lot, like universities have entire centers of entrepreneurship established. And I think that we really have to be more honest culturally with entrepreneurs. Like one of the comments that I also made is that founding CEOs are not overpaid. If they take all of those risks and then they end up absolutely killing it, extremely high risk, extremely high reward. I just think we have to be more honest culturally with entrepreneurs. And what really goes into that because a lot of times entrepreneurs are so busy that they never sit down to tell you exactly how high the stakes were. Richard Miles: 19:17 Those are great observations, Trevor, and got me thinking you’re right. There is a way in which popular culture and university programs and so on have kind of made entrepreneurship seem safer than it is, or like less risky than it is. And they hype the exciting part of it, right? But not the potential downsides. And it also strikes me too, that there’s this continuum between risk tolerance, where you’re willing to try new things, but also kind of gut confidence. Right? I imagine you wouldn’t do something like take out a second mortgage unless you had high confidence in the product, and the idea you’re developing was really solid. You didn’t just take a flyer and like, eh , maybe this work may be a wall and I’m guessing you told yourself, I know this is going to work. I just got to find the path there. Trevor Perrott: 19:57 Yeah. The thing that has driven me to really keep my foot on the gas is every now and again, I’ll see a video clip of a guy hanging out of a helicopter, working on a power line. And I know the stats about how risky his job is. And I just shake my head and say, there has got to be a better way. There has to be. And there’s 8% of every seat we put in the ground is lost to something preventable, poor irrigation, some disease that we didn’t know about that ended up eating the whole field. If the world’s food consumption is going to double between now and 2050, how the hell are you going to solve that problem? If 8% of what you plant now is lost . So there’s a lot of very, very global, very, very real problems that what we’re working on will solve. And sometimes I have to set my own team down and say things like we are going to have a lot of problems this week, but we are paid to solve them. We are paid problem solvers . So the way I tried to describe it as my job is ultimately leading people into a love affair with problem solving. Because if you do not have this passion to just go from one problem to the next to the next to the next, it will overwhelm you. Richard Miles: 21:18 That’s a great quote, I love it. Leaving people in the love affair with problem solving . I remember talking to another CEO once of a startup company. And he said that he had to strike the right balance in sharing updates on the company, how it was doing with the employees, but not too much because what he found was if he, every day sort of gave an update, like here’s our cashflow , here’s our burn rate. They were getting totally stressed out and they couldn’t concentrate on the work anymore. So he decided I need to dial back on the transparency for their sake. So you’re honest with them. You tell them where you are, but you don’t necessarily have to share every single up and down every single day, because you don’t want the people under you to have unrealistic picture, but you also need to give them that room to focus. I imagine that happens with you as well, right? You don’t want them to be too distracted by everything that comes across your desk . Trevor Perrott: 21:58 Absolutely. I have two co-founders and one of the growing pains of 2020 has been listen, guys, I’m not trying to hide anything from you, but for you to be effective and do the role that the company needs you to do, I can not bog you down with every single issue that comes across my desk, nor do I want you to bog me down with every single thing that comes across your desk. Ask yourself, do I need him? And if the answer is, yes, I need him. Then you’d call every time. But if you don’t then handle it yourself, that’s been something that in our core team, we’ve really had the work on this year, especially with all the moving parts. You talk about that I’m in an enviable position in a lot of ways. That’s very true, except we are still expected to perform. Our customers still expect us to be there. The product still has to work right. The revenue has got to be where it needs to be. There are very real things where the buck stops somewhere. And I guess that’s what me. Richard Miles: 23:05 Trevor, one final question, you certainly have gotten off to a great start. Where do you see the company where to see Censys Technologies? Let’s say in five years? Trevor Perrott: 23:13 Well, in five years, I want to be one of the companies that was responsible for mass market adoption of commercial drones. I want to be in that large middle ground between not really quiet household like Amazon yet, but people see our logo. It’s not novel. We’re trying to build a multi-billion dollar company here and that’s no small feat is going to take more investor capital. It’s going to take a lot of wins on the commercial front to get there, but I truly believe we can get there that there is a well , that is deep enough for that condition to be true. I always ask myself, okay, this thing that we’re about to go do, if we got 1% of 1% of the total market share, is it still a big number? And so long as that answer is yes, then we go forward. I just think that I can lead an effort where we control a few percentage points of the market. And if we do that and you’re talking in billions, how many people are happily employed because of that? How many people aren’t on the unemployment line because of that? How many people then die in a helicopter this year? Because of that, there’s some very real metrics that I think we can put a dent in. Richard Miles: 24:27 Well, I’m certainly off, like I said to a very good start. And I think it strikes me that you benefit highly from being in a highly competitive market. Because as you said, you can’t rest. I mean, the market demands certain things and your company needs to have that revenue and so on. And it’s a market accountability. That’s I think going to make you grow. That’s where I take back what I said earlier. Maybe you shouldn’t spend any time doing motivational speaking at all because that’s usually the one sign , right? When a CEO has gone wrong and they become a celebrity CEO and they quit running their companies, you probably shouldn’t do that yet. But Trevor, thanks for being on the show today. Really appreciate your insights and wish you the best of luck. Trevor Perrott: 25:01 Well, I really appreciate the invitation again, man . Thank you so much. And let me know when the podcast goes, live. Richard Miles: 25:08 Will do. Outro: 25:11 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

Just 20 years ago the dream of starting a space company could not have become a reality unless you had significant capital and access to government programs. Mark Sirangelo, one of the founders of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, along with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, joins us to discuss how the space industry is becoming far more accessible and how you can start your very own space company. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio: 0:39 Welcome to a special edition of Radio Cade. I’m your host, James Di Virgilio. And today we’re going to explore what sort of space company we might want to start, which kind of venture would you get into? What would be the wise thing to do? And how complicated is this? My guest today is Mark Sirangelo. He is one of the pioneers of commercial space flight, the commercial space industry, and someone who has a wealth of knowledge and depth of expertise, not only in space, but a wide variety of entrepreneurial ventures and projects. Mark, thanks for being with us today. Mark Sirangelo: 1:10 Well, thank you, James. I’m excited to talk a little bit about one of my favorite topics here and talk a little bit about the future and how people who might be looking at space might look at it. James Di Virgilio: 1:20 Now let’s revisit the past here you were in fact, one of the pioneers of commercial space flight . So non-government oriented space flight , private space flight. What was the genesis for that? And what did that look like in those days? Mark Sirangelo: 1:33 I’d be happy to go back a bit. And it’s funny because in going retrospective, you sometimes think it’s decades, but it really wasn’t. Most of what is now known as the commercial space flight industry largely started in the early 2000s. And in my case, 2004, when I took over a small little company called SpaceDev, that was based in San Diego. But about that time, it was interesting for me and a number of others who sort of created the foundation of this industry. We all seem to a number of us and I’m speaking of Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and Paul Allen, and a number of other people all from different directions started to look at the space industry and say that as an industry, it had not been disrupted in any really significant way for quite a long time. Really the only bellwether entrepreneurial company was a company called Orbital Sciences that was started by Dave Thompson. Who spun out of graduate school with an idea and a project that turned into a very significant company. But beyond that and a few others there , it was really not a sector in space for the most part was dominated by legacy companies, very large companies. And I think there was a convergence of people who had experience in disrupting other industries or who involved in the tech growth industry of the nineties and the early two thousands who looked at space and said, this seemed to be in an area which has a fascination to it. And that’s not a small part of why people get engaged, but had not been really refreshed for many, many years and decades, even. And from different perspectives. All within a couple of years, we approach various problems in space and said, how could we do this differently with a couple of benefits and one might see detriments, but the benefits being that none of us myself included had grown up in the space industry. We all had experience from other areas, but in doing that, we all had a pretty clean mind about how we might do it. And one of the challenges I think the industry had faced is because there’d been so much money invested into infrastructure and machine and equipment and processes that was very hard for them to step away and look at things differently. And I know in my own case, as I got together and a number of us met in the early days and sort of talked about how we might do this and how the industry might move forward. Most of the people and the names that I mentioned all gravitated to the rocket or the launch business, and the idea of finding a much less expensive way to bring things to space. And I think Elon puts it pretty well in that at the time, the rockets, which were one use rockets cost about the same as a seven 47, would you fly a seven 47 once and then throw it away. And that was his early comment in looking at this. And I think others felt the same way and still are in all those people are absent . Paul passed away recently were involved in getting up the space industry, mostly in the area of propulsion. I took similar view of disruption, but in my direction, in my company’s direction, surrounded by a tremendous group of very energetic people, numbering just about a couple of dozen people. In the early days, we decided to look at what was being brought to space, what goes on top of these rockets. And that would be the satellite industry. That would be the sensor industry. That would be the rock , the motors that move things around this space, not launched them. And we took a hard look at that and decided that the satellite industry really could benefit from the knowledge that came from other industries, other industries, meaning the computer laptop business or the medical device industry, many of which were able to build pretty exquisite stuff in a way that was not being done in space. Most satellites were being built by hand even into the early 2000s. So my path took me down the direction of wildlife associates out in the industry. We’re all looking to figure out how to launch things better, cheaper, and faster. I went to what would we launch on these things? And that seemed to be a fortuitous path to take, because it was at least in the early days, a lot less competition in that area, but it was a very difficult thing to do space. The reason why it hadn’t had new entries is that it’s a very capital intensive business. The primary customers being governments or large companies don’t really want to risk their business on new entries. It requires precision that requires a lot of quality control, a lot of gut checking on what you’re trying to accomplish. And that is very difficult to stand up. But nonetheless, we were able to take credit for launching one of the very first small satellites into orbit satellite with something small satellite, which has become fairly common these days at the time was not. I could control that satellite from my laptop, which was a pretty big breakthrough. And we produced it in the terms of months instead of years, and for tens of millions of dollars instead of hundreds of millions of dollars. But to do that, my motivation was not in and our groups motivation was not look to the space industry. We actually went out to look at other places, for example, Dell computer, which at the time was riding high building, essentially custom computers from a standardized system of choices and delivering fairly quickly a custom computer to your home. And we said, well, why can’t we apply some of these other techniques to space? And it worked quite well. We were part of a team that got us on the map. We won something called the X prize. We were part of the team that won the first X prize and at that time, and it seems crazy in some ways now, but the prize was to take a human on a spaceship to space and be able to do that three times in a month without any government money and working together with scaled composites and Paul Allen who financed it. We were able to do that and something called SpaceShipOne, which now hangs in the Smithsonian, and our company’s contribution to that was the rocket motor that enabled that trip to take place. And it was done out in the Mojave desert and felt very much like the wild West in many ways. It was quite an interesting environment. And still to this day, many entrepreneurial space companies gravitate to the high deserts out in California to collaborate and work together. James Di Virgilio: 7:33 So let’s visit for a second, Mark, something you mentioned. So you have private companies entering in, you have this disruption as you’re mentioning, and you touched on large companies, the risk reward benefit, how they may not want to invest so heavily. And as you mentioned, new ideas, new ventures, more risky ideas. Why is it in your opinion that governments in general are obviously not going to be looking at the same things that you did that Elon did that others did? Like you just mentioned what the Dell computer, why is it that there is sort of that blinder effect that they don’t approach the problem the same way? Mark Sirangelo: 8:07 You know, it’s interesting. And I like to think of myself as a bit of a historian. And when you actually look at cycles, and one of the things that propelled us in the early days was that, although what we were doing was new to the space industry, what we were doing in terms of disruption was certainly not new. If you went back into the seventies and eighties and looked at the birth of the computer, most people look at these computers in the personal computer industry and said, what could you possibly want to do at home? What could you do with a computer that has no computing power and has no battery power and so on and so forth. And most of the mainframe companies at that time just looked at that industry and said, it just doesn’t make any sense to us to go do this. And, and famously, they looked at software and they said, this software is not where the money is. It’s in hardware . And as many people know, that’s what launched Microsoft. IBM at the time did not think software is important. Then they seeded that largely to Bill Gates and Microsoft, as it turns out far clips to the hardware industry. And I bring that up only to say that those kinds of thinking processes in my view were exhibited in the space industry as well, that people looked at these small satellites and realized our first few satellites, we couldn’t do very much. It was like Sputnik was in the 1950s. Basically we can send it up and make some noise with it, take a few pictures maybe. And that was about it. And no one saw it as a serious tool for being used in government or being used in business. And the mistake was made that is, that had been made in the past that people just discounted it and this then credited it off to something else. If you look at Kodak who owned the photography and camera market for 50 years and had its 70 or 80% market share, they decided that digital photography would never work. And they are now relegated to historical footnote, if you will. And I think that philosophy is what drove us in that said it’s a very big market, which is very important when you’re starting something it’s tens of billions of dollars a year in acquisition. If you could break into that marketplace, even in a small way, it’s a fair amount of revenue. And I think Elon and Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson and others looked at the launch market and said, well, there’s 20 to 40 launches a year. And in each one costs a couple of hundred million dollars. If we can bring a product to market at half that price, aren’t we going to have a really good chance of getting a significant share in the market. And that’s in fact what happened. James Di Virgilio: 10:27 So then let’s look at what happens. Like you mentioned, they are successful with that as we’ve all witnessed in a watch. And now that marketplace, as you mentioned, very competitive, the rocket, they get to space, if you will marketplace. And now we’re seeing space businesses obviously grow in range of diversity because we can get there with rockets because we can get there more efficiently. We can now begin to say, well, Hey, maybe more people have access to doing things and helping things which brings us to our topic for today. As you look around the landscape, as you’re seeing what’s needed, as you’re seeing maybe the next wave of disruption, what are some ideas or what are some endeavors that people can begin to work on further disrupting. And this, as you mentioned, large market large industry. Mark Sirangelo: 11:07 Just to put it in perspective from the time where I launched into this industry, which is 17 years ago now, 16, 17 years ago, the company that I held was privileged to lead , or the several companies that we may end up doing acquisitions and mergers had completed over 300 space missions. And something we built has gone to seven of the nine planets has gone to the sun. It’s gone to our moon in my wildest dreams. Would I have thought that I would have visited seven planets in my space career? It was not something we were thinking about. We have done that and survived , but in part, I think every entrepreneur has to look at their business. And one of the hardest things to do is to be completely honest about it. Not only honest about the technology, but the timeframes, how long might it take. And in my case, when I looked at it, it was clearer to me that we could build the technologies. It was less clear to me that we would be accepted. And it was even less clear that even if we weren’t accepted many of these things take years to come to fruition. We were on the new horizons mission to Pluto, which took 10 years to get to Pluto, but it took six years to build. And so from start to finish, it was almost a 15 or 16 year journey. And when you’re starting a small company, how do you survive with those kinds of timeframes? So you have to look at it. And in my case, I made a pretty fateful decision. And that was while I was pursuing these big dreams of rocket motors and satellites. And eventually the craziest part of that was that we thought we could build a replacement for the space shuttle when we were less than 50 people on the space shuttle at the time was still flying in at 18,000 people working on it. But that was disruption at its maximum concept, if you will. And it has come to fruition that we did wind up building the spaceship. It is now built and tested, and it’s going to be flying here within the next year. So it was a long journey, but well, over 10 years we went from a crazy concept to something that could be one of the basis for US space flight for a long time to come. But in the midst of all those dreams you have to survive. One has to, I use the analogy. I may want to become a movie star, but I’m waiting tables for a while until I do. And in our case, what we decided to do is to go into the manufacturer of components and the pieces of other people’s spacecraft. It was not the most glamorous part of it. It wasn’t the most exciting dream part of it, but we got to be good at it. And we found out that everybody would buy our parts and our components and it paid the light bills and still does in any way. It’s a good business. If you get into it, it’s not the glamorous part of the business, but it is a good business. And I think in every entrepreneurial mindset, you have to look at what it is that you ultimately are going to do. But then you have to look at how do you get there? Part of it’s raising money. Part of it is having enough business to keep yourself afloat. Part of it is to build a reputation and we made a pretty fateful choice and somewhat laughed at at the time to diverge a part of our resources to go into this business and bought a company that was doing that and added them to the mix. So we had this idea of two or three big dream projects supported by a lot of sort of blocking and tackling simple stuff. And as I look at today, one of the things I think I talk about when I lecture at the University of Colorado and privileged to be able to do that, but a lot of people want to talk about the hardware, particularly since I’ve built so much of it and my teams have built so much of it. And it’s exciting, it’s sure is it’s exciting to build a new shuttle . It’s exciting to build a satellite, or we were on five missions to Mars that landed on Mars and sitting on the mountain here in Colorado and looking up at Mars, you’d say, you know, something I’ve built in touched is on that little star up there. It’s pretty mind-blowing. But what I do that today, and the answer is probably not as alluring and sexy is the rockets. And the hardware is a lot of people have entered that space. And particularly on the satellite side, it has become more and more ubiquitous in the sense of people trying to build small satellites. But what isn’t and where I would go is I think a little bit different. And again, history shows an analogy, but in the past 50 or so years, we have normally somewhere in the 3 to 5,000, depending on how you count them, satellites have launched. And that’s from the beginning of the space industry in the 1950s, that number of satellites will be launched in the next five years. And when you think of that, what’s the outcome of that while we’ve got all this hardware that’s up there. Now, the question is, what do we do with it? And my analogy here is imagine that you S had broadband to every house in America, but didn’t have anything on broadband. What has happened in the last 10 years, you’ve seen this massive movement to apps, this massive movement to content providers, and everyone can turn on their TV and get 900 channels. Now it’s not so much about the hardware anymore in maybe with an exception of 5g and a few things. Most of it is about what you deliver. And I think that analogy is where I would go in space. There’s going to be a significant amount of space, data, and access to other data. And the question is, what do you do with it? And I talk about the space app industry. What are the apps from space using this amount of information 10 years ago? If you talk to someone about the fact that we would get all our airline and travel done on our phones, and we would not need maps and everything would be done electronically, we do all our banking from our living room. People would have questioned that maybe thought you were a little nuts, but that’s in fact what’s happened. And it is happened because the hardware was built to accommodate it. But mostly because we now have a way to get that information. I have a friend who was involved with the Apple music business and they said, well, we had the Apple, the iPods and other music devices. We knew we could build them and we had them, but we had to wait until broadband hit to about 30% of the US market before we could really launch the business because no, one’s going to wait two hours to download a song. And that’s what’s happening in space. We were at the precipice of having huge amount of data and infrastructure. Some of it is going to be used for traditional methods. Others are though , it’s going to be open for creativity. How can one use this information? What new businesses can you derive? Some of it we’re seeing right now, we’re all going through the COVID response in our own way, in our own personal lives. But one of the things that’s come out of it is this idea of telemedicine using phones, using computers, to visit with doctors, to get a lot of our medical information moved and taken care of. That’s a new business that was driven forward faster because of the pandemic. But nonetheless, it’s a use of what I would call the app side of life, as opposed to the hardware side of life. And we’re seeing that in space. And I think that would be a big area that I would look at. How does one create new businesses? Businesses are , or applications. People may not even know they need or want right now. And that to me is where that opening is in the future. James Di Virgilio: 17:56 Lets take what tends to be the sexiest story of entrepreneurship, which is somebody in their garage, tinkering with an idea, somebody nowadays writing code somewhere by themselves, somebody just off and their little nook, thinking about a problem and solving it. Are there any problems like that, that people are able to work on? Let’s call it the garage entrepreneur in space, or is it still too capital intensive as you mentioned earlier? Mark Sirangelo: 18:20 Well, I think the point here is that someone else is building the infrastructure. You can tap into it, those people in the garages that do what they’re doing. They’re not building broadband networks, but they’re accessing it. We all are from our homes. So you don’t have to look very far to look at how much the access to broadband has changed our everyday lives. I mean, I probably have a hundred apps on my phone doing everything I ever wanted to do. So I think to look at this and say, you have to have hundreds of millions of dollars to raise a ticket in some space. That is the case now, or has been the case. It was the case in my run up. But I think once this infrastructure is up there, it’s going to be for sale. So let’s take, for example, several companies are doing imaging from space, commercially that used to be the privilege of the governments of the world. You can pretty much now get imaging of any location, any time that you want. The question is how good is the image and how fast is it updated, which is going to change very rapidly. So for example, the real estate industry where you will not buy or sell house in most of America without seeing images of that house from space, most, every realtor uses that somehow to show you the neighborhood, to show you the house, to show you what the property looks like to show you where you sit relative to those shopping malls that didn’t exist a few years ago. And that’s all using space imagery that imagery for the most part is weeks or months old. And what’s happening now is that imaging might be days old or hours old. What new industries can come out of that one for example, is that cities are managing their locations from space, a lot more actively using cameras, remote cameras, and imaging, big cities out here in the West, where I live. You can figure out where to go pile their streets by looking at the snow drifts and the snow falls and vectoring the piling to a place that’s needed more. We’re seeing how their huge forest fires out in the West. Many of those images from space are now telling us where to send the firefighters. And that helps us put the fires out, save lives, save a lot of money, but also helps us save the forest that we’re in those kinds of trends, which are already here are only going to accelerate very rapidly in the future. And the people who have the idea. If I were looking at this, I would say, how do I use that infrastructure to solve a problem that either hasn’t been solved in a good way, or maybe people don’t even know they want solved yet to me, that’s the wave of change here. Yes. They’re going to be people who still want to build small satellites or want to put the camera up in space, but that marketplace has dozens of companies already in it. I would say, if I were doing this, I’d go to the soft side of this, the software side, and figure out assuming that all this happens in the next few years, how do I use it for the betterment of society, for the people I need for the businesses that might need it? We used our satellites, for example, to track there’s a company out there as a public company called Orbcomm that I worked with in the past and their business was not space. We built the satellites for them. Their business was to track things for other people. So Walmart wanted to know where all their trucks were and FedEx wanted to know where all their packages, where they could track using space, tracking all those assets so that somebody sitting in Bentonville, Arkansas, who runs all the assets for Walmart , knows exactly where every one of their mobile assets is at any point in time. And not only knows where it is, but also knows how it is. What speed is, is it parked ? Is it moving? Is it, if it’s a refrigerated truck is a refrigerated compartment at the right temperature, all that’s using a commercial privately built space asset to do. And the reason you can get on your phone and find out where your Amazon packages immediately is because of this infrastructure. James Di Virgilio: 21:55 Now we can look at this. You mentioned Dell earlier, just like the computer industry, right? Once upon a time, not that many years ago, computer was a huge, massive capital intensive fixed cost item. And now of course, your cell phone right, is a supercomputer and everyone has access. As you mentioned to app stores to code writing, to open source platforms, to all the things that allow you to go on and do the things you do without thinking about it. You know, once upon a time nobody would have had access. I think there’s this demystification of space. That is your saying seems to be right on the horizon of happening where right now, if you think, if you talk to most people, space feels so pioneering so far away, solving problems seems almost so other worldly. So complicated yet on this Radio Cade series, we find out that every person we talk to, they get into it much like somebody gets on any business here on earth, they get introduced to it and they see a problem and they think, well, I’ve got some expertise that might be able to solve that problem in the landscape. Your painting is that these problems are going to becoming more available, essentially becoming more available for someone to solve versus before, where as you mentioned, you know, you had to be a government or you had to be one of the engineers or thought leaders on the project, but pretty soon that’s not going to be the case. And then there’s going to be a wide array of options in space. It almost seems too, sci fi oriented to think that that’s so close, but here that is. And what I want to talk about now is your background. I get this question a lot. Yeah. But I don’t have the right background for that. Or I didn’t go to school for that specific thing. Or I just would have no way of getting into that. But your background is fascinating. You were a photographer, you were involved with Broadway, and now here you are. And if you just listened to the majority of this podcasts , I’m sure it’s quite surprising for the listener to find out what you have done, how Mark do those things possibly coincide. How do you get to where you are today? Mark Sirangelo: 23:41 Thank you, but I think one of the things I like to talk about is the idea that they , these worlds that people think are so disparate actually coincide quite a lot. In my case, I have lived an active artistic path while I was building businesses. As space was my third entrepreneurial business that I was able to build and be successful in, but I never really left what I’ll call the artistic side, left brain, right brain. And the reason I say that is because most of what I do or most of what happens, even in something as technical as the space industry is art in a different way to bring an example of that, going to land a Rover on Mars. Very few people would think is art. But before that ever happened, somebody had to sit there and come up with the creative idea of how would we do this? What would the vehicle look like? What does Mars look like? How do you imagine the elements and something that you will never see personally, that we only have skin images on. And many of the people in my organization, which grew to be thousands of people, I would say are the creative mind. There’s a creative mind. There’s the people who come up with the creative idea and turn it into a prototype. And then people who take the prototype and figure out how to make it and make it successfully. If I can say in a broad scope, in any successful entrepreneurial company. And then there’s the fourth element of that, which is all the people who keep the company and all the activities of the company working and those four elements of any successful entrepreneur company and the three that I’ve built, you have that balance and that tension between those pieces. But you need all those pieces. You can’t come up with an idea. Even the conversation we’re having today is what do you do in the future? People think of that as somehow business orientated or technical orientated, and certainly is. But a lot of that is in the creative side. And many of the people that I employed, even directly artists, frankly, in this space, because we storyboarded out, like you would storyboard a movie, we storyboarded out. What would it be like to build this vehicle? And there’s an awful lot of overlap between the two. And I like to point that out for people. The other two things I would add is that space is somewhat of a paradox. And the paradox is that most people who aren’t in it believe it to be so advanced. They can’t conceive it. But the truth of it, most things that happen in space are actually behind the technology that exists on earth. It takes somewhere. If you’re building a big satellite or a program to go to another planet or even a spaceship, it can take 10 to 15 years from concept to flight in that period of time, somewhere around, let’s say, if it’s a ten-year program, somewhere around year three, you’re locking down the design, which means the computers, the sensors, everything that’s on there is what exists in year three. It may not launch until year seven. It may not get to where it’s going to year 10. So by the time it gets there in year 10, it’s using seven year old technology. And that is the case for virtually all the things that happen in space. And when you think of it in those terms, in some ways, the paradox is that it is less mystifying because in fact, it’s a bunch of computers and a bunch of sensors and cameras and wiring and composites and metals all put together to do something. And yes , it’s a very difficult thing to do, but the elements are not that difficult. And the other piece that I think is important as , as you do this, is that not everybody needs to be a specialist. The joke that a lot of people talk about saying it’s not rocket science. Well in my world, it was rocket science. And I was fortunate to have well over a thousand PhDs and rocket scientists. And I’d like to say, if I am successful, if I walk into a room and I’m the least smart person in the room, that wasn’t my job, my job wasn’t to be the specific person who knew physics, about how something lands on Mars. There are people who know that you spend your whole life on those kinds of things. My job was to round up all these very smart people, all of whom were smarter than me and get them to move in the right direction and make the right calls about where to move them and to get them to believe in what I was doing enough to follow me down that path. And I think people confuse the two that yes, I’ve become one of the leaders of the space industry. And I’ve had this fabulous career, but the idea is mostly behind. I am fortunate enough to have so many talented, good people. All of whom were specialists, that we were able to point in the right directions and win most times. James Di Virgilio: 27:58 And that’s such a true picture of here on earth or here in space, as you mentioned, needing each other, needing creative diversity, needing different skillsets , what motivates us and utilizing the people skills, the different desires we have to come together and truly achieve something fascinating. When you described standing on top of a mountain in Colorado and seeing something you touched reach Mars, right, reach a planet that is such a great depiction of what an incredible creative process that took. And oftentimes we think of sciences, anti creative, which couldn’t be further from the truth is you just mentioned to look up in the sky and say, I want to get there. And I’m going to figure out how to get there is absolutely peak creativity. And as you mentioned, there are going to be more and more questions, more and more things that we can do to explore, to take things that we learned from space and improve the very lives that we live here on earth, as well as going into space. And all of those things are going to occur. As you mentioned, in , in what is a frontier market, that’s becoming much more accessible as a closing thought here, Mark, as you look out into the future, as you see where we are, I’d be remissed. If I didn’t ask you, there’s so many projections, when are we going to wind up being on the moon? When are we going to be on Mars? How realistic do you think some of these projections are about humans, truly having any kind of actual stable setup on any planet? Is this really as close as people make it out to be? Is that something that’s going to happen or is that too much of a moonshot right now? Mark Sirangelo: 29:25 No, I think it is when you say close, close in space terms, I think is entirely feasible that we will have some type of presence on the moon within the next 10 years. And I don’t just mean sending someone there to walk around and take pictures and bring home rocks. I think what we’re moving towards and it’s pretty rapidly moving towards this is to have something. The easiest example is what we have in Antarctica and Antarctica research station that exists on the moon. And there’s a lot more similarities in those connections than most people realize. And Antarctica is the station we’ve been having for 50 years. It’s visited by countries all over the world. It’s not owned by any one country. And the research goes on there every year and people come in and out of the research station and do their work. They don’t stay there forever. And sometimes only there for a few months at a time. And it’s an enormously harsh environment that takes two or three days to get to some times . That’s what I think we’re going to wind up having on the moon. And there’s a lot of good reasons for it. Some of those are scientific. Some of those are resource driven. There’s potentially huge amounts of resources on the moon. We have found that there is significant what appears to be water ice for much of the Southern hemisphere and the moon, and perhaps even elsewhere. And we also want to think about, we have a space station that’s been flying around for the last 20 years this week as its 20th anniversary of the space station, being a human, going to the space station for the first time. But that’s base stations in the latter years of its life and is not going to continue. And there isn’t any plans and you made your plans to build a new one. I think that idea is shifting to saying rather than having something that’s mechanical, that’s flying around and tends to fall apart. Why not move that concept and put it permanently on the moon? We have everything that we need to do that some things have to be developed. We have to develop the right landing systems and the rovers and the computers and all those things. But there isn’t anything major there that has to be created in my view, the living part of it has to be figured out, how do we actually live there for long-term we’ve been living in space. Our astronaut’s been there for six to 12 months at a time they come home. There’s no harm to it. So I think that is well within the realistic possibilities and those things that need to be developed are largely onto the development path. And then the question is, could we go to Mars? Well, certainly we could go to Mars. We’ve already sent things there and they’re working and they’re working as we speak right now. And there’s a new Mars Rover that it’s on its way there. It’s about halfway to Mars. It’s going to land in another four months or so. So we have proven we can get there. And the question is, do we need to go there with humans? And what will it take to send a human there? And it’s really not about the time as much humans have survived in isolation kinds of situations for more than a 9 or 12 months, it takes to get to Mars. But right now the human going to Mars wouldn’t survive the trip because of radiation and other issues. And the question is, is that necessary? And that’s become an esoteric question I think is as society, both in the United States and around the world, do we want to continue that exploration it’s expensive. It takes a lot of commitment, probably a global kind of cooperation to get to Mars because no one country has those resources. Do we want to do it? And do we want to do it as humans? Do we want to continue the pattern of exploration that goes back now, thousands of years, when the first people got on their first sailboats and started moving, why did the Polynesians leave their homes to go to Hawaii? I mean, they left islands that were pretty good, but then went to look for something else. And I happen to like Hawaii. So I’m glad they did, but that question is not a new question. And it’s a question that I think is part science, part technical, but a large part, the human spirit. And maybe on that point, I’ll end by saying, I think a large part of why space is important, why it’s still important. Why we still talk about the moon program from Apollo is because it drove people to want to do more than what they’re doing now. And I don’t just mean in space. I mean, in computers, many of the early founders of computers were inspired by the space program. I mean, in medicine and list goes on and on. People saw that activity that pushing the envelope that we did in the sixties and seventies and they took it and they moved in into so many different areas. And I would argue, that’s probably one of the biggest benefits to society. Now as an inactive space program is what we learned , what we bring home, the things that are better, the medicine, the medical devices, and other things, we move into society, but we also create people who want to do something more and it’s still unknown how that will play out. But we can look back at history in the last 50 years and see what did all those people like myself, who were inspired by the early space program and aviation pioneers to go do something else. And I think that’s the hope of society. James Di Virgilio: 34:00 It’s rather remarkable. As you mentioned for all of human history, we could say, I want to go over here because I don’t know what’s on the other side of the ocean, or even today, if you’ve traveled the world right now, you can’t stand outside and see across the world. You can’t see Antarctica. You can’t see China or Australia. You can’t even see the neighboring County, but you can look up in the sky at night and you can see the moon. And for much of the year, you can see a variety of planets. And to think that, like you mentioned, we’ve been there. We’re going to get there. Things are going to happen there. I think, is this other worldly feeling yet? It’s connected to the first humans who thought I’m going to go into the next set of woods . I’m going to go over the horizon. So absolutely fascinating stuff, Mark. Thanks for joining us. Everyone should know that you are a Hall of Famer, always great to announce a Hall of Famer at NASA and Space Foundation’s Technology Hall of Fame amongst so many other things. Wonderful discussion today. I know it enlightened me and I’m sure it enlightened to all of our Radio Cade listeners. Mark Sirangelo: 34:52 Well, thank you very much, James and I am privileged to be able to talk a little bit to you and all the listeners take care now. James Di Virgilio: 34:58 For Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio. Outro: 35:00 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists , Jacob Lawson .

What do you do with human waste in space? Daniel Yeh, winner of the 2014 Cade Prize and a professor at the University of South Florida, invented a solar-powered system that converts human waste into nutrients, energy and water. Initially designed for small villages in the underdeveloped world, the all-in-one waste management system is being tested for use in the Artemis program for a return to the moon in 2024. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:39 Waste in space, specifically human waste. What do you do with it? And is it good for anything? Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host Richard Miles. And today we’ll be talking to Daniel Yeh, an engineering professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, as well as a winner of the 2014 Cade Prize. Welcome to Radio Cade Daniel. Daniel Yeh: 0:56 Richard it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me here. Richard Miles: 0:58 So Daniel, you’ve had an incredible ride over the last several years, six years ago, you won the Cade Prize. It was a great moment for you and your team. Now we’re going to talk all about that, the technology behind it and so on. But first I’d sort of like to focus on you a little bit. Tell us what the Daniel Yeh story. So you’re born to come home from the hospital, then what happens? And then how did you end up in Tampa? Daniel Yeh: 1:19 So I grew up in Northern New Jersey, I think just typical suburban environment, nothing really exciting. And I was thinking, you might ask me this question. So I was thinking, you know, do I have something, some aha moment as an inventor, right? You people usually point to something when they’re living , right ? Somebody gave them some electronic tool kit and that sparks some creativity. No, I think I listened to a lot of music at the time. And that was obviously pre-internet. I just listened to a lot of radio and whenever I can get on the bus and lay down , I was able to drive over New York City, go watch concerts and clubs and whatnot. And that’s mostly what I did focus a lot on music. Richard Miles: 1:55 Are you a musician yourself? Daniel Yeh: 1:56 That’s on my bucket list and to pick up a guitar and play and probably should . Now that you’re asking me that. So after high school, I went to the University of Michigan. And for me, that was a world of difference from what I was used to coming from the New York, New Jersey area, being in the Midwest. And I think that experience going to the University of Michigan, being a Midwest really changed my life in many ways, got to see a different perspective of how people are in the Midwest. And of course, I met my wife there. Richard Miles: 2:24 That helps it. Daniel Yeh: 2:25 it was life changing for the better. Richard Miles: 2:27 So we entered the University of Michigan. Did you know you wanted to study engineering or what was your undergraduate major? Daniel Yeh: 2:31 I did not. So I thought about biology and I was really attracted to nature. That was one thing to have may explain where I am today. I was really attracted to nature. I started out in the school of natural resources and ended up with degrees in natural resources, as well as civil engineering. I even attended forestry camps. I thought I was going to be a forest ranger, but at some point at Michigan, that something clicked. I realized that engineers develop solutions. Engineering is how you get things done. And if I really want, I think, solve problems, I need to become an engineer. So that’s where I pivoted and double majored and pursued a degree in civil engineering, the realm of equations. Richard Miles: 3:07 So you finished up at U M and then what came after that? Daniel Yeh: 3:09 From there, I went to work, went back to New Jersey to work work for a consulting company, did a lot of computer modeling to study impacts of human development on water bodies. So specifically looking at this case where there’s a potential development in a watershed in Northern New Jersey and the pristine watershed and our job as the consultant was to project the impact from that development and how that might impact a water reservoir. So I think that was a good experience because they really got me to think about what constitutes a good computer model. When people say garbage in garbage out, I really understood what that meant. A motto is only as good as the assumptions state you put behind it. It is only as good as the data that you have to formulate a model from there. I decided to go back to Michigan to get my master’s degree. And then after I got my master’s degree, I worked at Ford Motor Company for a little while. So that was a good experience. Getting industrial engineering, industrial waste management experience. I was part of a research group that was in charge of troubleshooting issues at Ford, almost kind of like a strike force, looking at different issues related to environmental aspects, waste management at Ford. But that’s where I think I met my first life-changing mentor. His name is Hyung Kim and Dr. Kim really just loved to talk and give advice. And he said, young man, you need to go South to Georgia Tech because that’s where, before he came to Ford, he was teaching and I follow his advice and went to Georgia Tech to pursue my PhD in environmental engineering. Richard Miles: 4:34 Wow. Yeah . And then you just kept going, he’s got a PhD and. Daniel Yeh: 4:37 Kept going. Yeah, I think that didn’t have everything mapped out. A lot of that is just, well in each one of these jobs that I’ve always felt like, I didn’t know enough. I always felt like I could do my work, but I just didn’t know enough. Right . There was something that was kind of nagging me. Like I could apply the solution, but, but what constitutes that solution? Like how did people come up with that solution? And I felt like ultimately I really need to get a PhD so I can essentially construct something from zero. And I’m glad I did, because I think that whole PhD process rewires your brain. It does, either breaks you or makes you. Richard Miles: 5:09 A lot of inventors have unique stories. And when you start out saying that you used to go to New York City, it’s funny, I’ve had two other inventors on the show and they started the exact same way, but the sentence always ends. Like I went to go see like planetariums and science museums. You’re the first as I went to music clubs . Daniel Yeh: 5:24 I did, I went to the village. Richard Miles: 5:26 And all sorts of ways that you can map out a career path, but that’s not a bad one. So Daniel , let’s talk about your inventions. And first of all, the work that you’ve been doing recently, at least since I’ve met you last six years, you’re dealing with most people by definition don’t ever want to hear about or talk about it’s human waste. And so forgive me, you’ve probably heard every single poop joke out there by now. You’ve probably gotten used to it. Daniel Yeh: 5:47 I’ve heard most of them, but there’s still some good ones. Yeah. Richard Miles: 5:50 So start out by explaining the technology that won the Cade Prize six years ago, the new generator, which if I remember it was solar, it converted human waste into nutrients, energy, and water, hence the name. And it was essentially like an all in one sanitation slash power slash water system for small villages. And is that essentially what it did. Daniel Yeh: 6:10 And that’s essentially what it is. So the motivation behind this idea is the fact that we have close to 3 billion people on the planet that lacks something that we take for granted e very d ay, which is the ability to go to the bathroom and flush a nd f orget and go about our daily business. And the reason that we’re able to flush and forget is because in our society, t here’s infrastructure, starting with the toilet itself, then you have a whole series of underground pipes, the pipes in your house, the sewers i n the city, a massive underground network and leading to a wastewater treatment facility that handles that waste and turns it into clean water. Water that’s either clean enough to put back into the nature or water that you can recycle for other uses. This system is very expensive to build and probably even more expensive to maintain. So for many parts of the world that are in the emerging economies, they’re struggling with t he various infrastructure issues and this type of sanitation infrastructure that we use is really difficult for a lot of cities to build, not to mention t hat for many mega cities, they basically b uilt very organically. So now it’s very difficult to go back and basically dig up the entire underground and put all those pipes in. Richard Miles: 7:18 For these systems that you develop . Can you give us a rough idea of size? I seem to remember they’re fairly compact and small. Daniel Yeh: 7:24 Yeah. So normally you would have this entire factory, right? It looks like a whole factory facility that your domain would be one or multiple in , in a city, depending on the size of a city, like a whole plant. Right? Yeah. And so what we’re after is, is there a different way to provide this type of service so that you don’t have this build as massive sets of pipes under the ground? And normally the trade-off is that, well, it looks like the only thing that’s available is either a latrine, which is essentially a form of hole in the ground or a septic tank of some sort and in the 21st century. And it’s incredible information technology age. So there’s gotta be different ways to do that. Right. And so the idea is that if we can have essentially a hub of some sort near where people live, those that their waste can enter this hub and the pipe runs would be relatively short, could either be the one hub per house or per a cluster of houses or cluster of public toilets. But this hub would not only safely handled the waste that go a step beyond that. It will view the waste as a resource, not a liability, but extract what we can out of the resource. So that’s the water, the energy nutrients, and actually provide value back to the community and this hub, because many parts of the world is crowded. So it can not be very big. So it has to be relatively compact. And what we build are essentially fraction of the size of a 20 foot container. Richard Miles: 8:40 Really? Yeah. And how are they powered? Daniel Yeh: 8:42 To date we’ve built them all solar power. And the reason is in these communities that a re lacking sanitation, they’re probably lacking other things as well. And part of the sanitation equation is water, but electricity is another global problem. Many communities either don’t have electricity at all, or is severely unreliable. And that’s another part o f that cost equation for the US that these treatment plants, we have c onsume a lot of electricity. So we basically need to come up with a low energy system that can run on r enewable. S o it runs on solar, but along the way, we also extract energy out of it in t he form of bio gas that communities can use for heating, cooking, lighting, and so forth. Richard Miles: 9:17 So something in the size you said that could fit easily into part of a cargo container, what size village could that handle? Both the waste and provide a reasonable amount of power for? Daniel Yeh: 9:27 The first form we built what we called a new generator, a New Gen 100 serves nominally about a hundred person a day. And that’s about a third of the size of 20 foot container . So roughly a foot by six and a half foot wide. So that’s the size of that. And then right now we are testing a new generator, 1000, serving a thousand people for about double the size of that. So basically 10 times the capacity at double the size. Richard Miles: 9:52 And you’re currently testing these, I think in India, right? And South Africa is that where you’ve done most of your testing. Daniel Yeh: 9:57 We started our testing in India and then later on, because we’ve had good success, we moved to South Africa and these are all places where there is a significant needs. And we’re currently still developing the technology in South Africa. This is all through just the support of the Gates Foundation that had this vision to basically reinvent a toilets that can basically do all those things I described independent of sewer . So basically the next generation of toilets. So we were fortunate to be one of the teams funded by the Gates Foundation to develop these technologies. Richard Miles: 10:26 How did you get on their radar screen? Was there an application process or did they reach out to you? Or how did that connect happen? Daniel Yeh: 10:31 So , so after Georgia Tech, I later on move on to Stanford to do my postdoc . And then that’s when things start to click in terms of working with wastewater. And so I was working with this technology called an anaerobic membrane bioreactor with another good mentor there , Craig Credo. And this is sort of the latest and greatest technology for waste water treatment. But I always felt like there’s an application to apply this for sanitation context. But the thing is nobody would fund that it was difficult to get funding within the US because this is for a global need, right? And then if I go to talk to the NGOs, they tend to want to work with tried and true technologies. There really aren’t any resources available to develop transformative technologies. So this thing is we’re sort of caught in between, right ? Until the Gates Foundation came along with this program that they want to reinvent the toilet. So it all started in 2011 with a two-page application. They had a program called grand challenges explorations, anybody in the world can apply anybody. You just need to supply two pages. And the first time I applied, I didn’t get it. And then I retool made the application better and then apply it again. And then I got it. Richard Miles: 11:35 And what year are we talking about Daniel? Daniel Yeh: 11:36 Uh , that was 2011. Richard Miles: 11:38 2011. Okay. All right . So one more question then before we move on to the space application of this and what you’re working on now, I’m imagining that by nature, this is not difficult to both install and fix. So if you put it in a village or any remote area and something goes wrong, do you need to, in an engineer from somewhere, or is there extensive training that’s required? Or how long would it take you to train person of average intelligence, how to fix one of these things? Daniel Yeh: 12:01 So what you described this scenario is exactly the challenges that when we develop technologies for this type of context, often in remote areas. You have to think through. So first of all, the technology needs to be extremely reliable. And you need to think about all the things that may potentially fail. And every machine fails. At some point, if you have a car and you never change the oil, it will fail on you. At some point, you’ve never inflate your tire. It will fail on you since Henry Ford time. And before we have made so many cars in the world, that we have a good idea to predict reliability, automobiles, that we understand their failure modes and meantime to failure and end to preventative maintenance needed for those. So what we’re trying to do is get our technology to that point where we can predict failures, that you can have preventive, maintenance, change out parts before they go out. And then you essentially have a workforce, right? Because one of the issues in lobbies communities also is high unemployment. So you want to create value in the product you’re providing so that somebody will pay for this value, this product, this service, which is sanitation, and then employ people who will be trained technicians to serve as the units. And people are very smart and clever anywhere in the world, you go, right ? Somebody will figure out how to solve that need. And right now we’re working with some of the smartest people I’ve ever come across in South Africa. And the prototype engineer that we have working with our sister is just dynamite. So I totally believe that this approach will work, that you make a reliable technology, and then you train a technical workforce to go along with that. And then you create a business model that will sustain that operation . Richard Miles: 13:34 So let’s switch now from the underdeveloped world to space. At some point you attracted the attention of NASA. First question, when I heard that, is that, that , well, hasn’t NASA figured this out already. I mean, even astronauts got to go, you know, they they’ve clearly they’ve done some work on what you do with human waste in space. So tell us, did they contact you for it’s fall or you contacted get them? And what was their request? What were they looking for? Daniel Yeh: 13:55 So the whole thing was serendipity. I happened to be giving a talk on the space coast at a workshop actually about what we were doing in India. And after my talk, a NASA scientist came over and started talking to me, his name is Luke Robertson. And he said, you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we need to go to this next generation of water recycling in space, because right now on the international space station, we’re pretty good at recycling water on international space station. We can recycle even the water in urine. The issue is the amount of chemicals involved to make that whole process happen. And he’s worried that when we move beyond the ISS to the moon and then to Mars, this resupply of the chemicals will be either extremely difficult or expensive or just not possible. So NASA kind of needs to go onto this next generation of technologies that might be more biologically inclined that will use less chemicals. So that’s one and the other is the need is driven by food production. Well, we need to grow food on Mars, but our current approach doesn’t allow us to connect the dots. And I know there’s fertilizer and waste, but we need an enabling technology to make that happen. So we started talking and then putting our heads together and applying a lot of the ideas that we developed through the new generator towards what we’re currently doing with it NASA. Richard Miles: 15:09 So I guess the big question, obviously, anything deal with this space is does this work, or can it work in zero gravity or low gravity? Have you done any testing so far? I imagine you have to establish a proof of concept before we go any further, or will you not know that until you get to step on the International Space Station? Daniel Yeh: 15:26 The very first thing is that we need to have a technology that can show that, you know, if you have a certain type of input into the system, that you can get a certain output out. So meets the requirements of NASA that I can have water that basically looks like water containing toilet water, and out will come clean water, right? It meets their requirements within a certain space. So that’s the level that we’re at right now, but obviously we’re doing this technology on the earth where gravity is present. So while we designed a system with microgravity in mind, we won’t really know that until we actually build the next iteration, which hopefully then will be subjected to low gravity situations. So kind of have to climb the ladder. First, first, you need to show that, yeah, I can get it to work. And then the next iteration is okay, I’m going to actually build a version deck, stand up to all the requirements of micro gravity . And then the other is that, you know, micro gravity is not the only setting. If you’re looking at surface habitats, whether it’s the moon, one, six gravity of the earth or Mars about one third, there’s going to be gravity present. So you get to enjoy gravity a little bit in this system you built for this context, although it’s going to be a reduced gravity. Richard Miles: 16:34 So let me make sure I understand this correctly. So in addition to cleaning up the wastewater and converting it to water without chemicals, which is the big advantage compared to what NASA does now, you’re also creating fertilizer for plants growing in space. What was NASA’s plan before that? Were they just going to truck a bunch of fertilizer up to the moon? Or how did they plan if at all, to grow things on a moon base. Daniel Yeh: 16:56 Other ideas have often been considered. I think the technology is wasn’t there yet because of the focus on making what you currently have work. As you know, right now, NASA is given a budget by Congress and it needs to work within demand days of the budget of their current administrations. So priorities do shift over time. For example, since the Apollo era, we haven’t gone back to the moon because the priority has shifted to lower earth orbit. And you can watch all sorts of shows on TV, talking about how this future would have been if we had kept going and gone to Mars. So we would’ve been there maybe 30 years ago, but it’s the focus happened on lower earth orbit. So even though I think in the back of their head has always been the need to develop a different version of the technology, but the focus has been to get things to work on ISS and what they currently have works for the ISS very well. In fact, one of the reasons I got involved working in NASA, well, first of all, who doesn’t want to work with NASA, right ? Right. So, but the second is, as an engineer is incredibly challenging and you get to work with some really, really good people. And it also rewires your brain, I think a different way. But under these very difficult constraints, if you can get something to work, you can probably develop something that will work better on earth as well. Richard Miles: 18:03 So dividends that pay off as you develop something for NASA, you could discover it , it works even better or other applications here. Daniel Yeh: 18:10 We think so yeah. So for example, we know there’s a lot of technologies developed for a space that has since been sound translate to earth like GPS, the algorithms use for talking to the space station is now the algorithm used for laser surgery and the list goes on and on. So we’re basically miniaturizing the new generator into something, the size of a refrigerator. And we see that, well, the outcome of this might be something like an appliance household appliances, like refrigerator sized decadent, or just basically handle all the waste as his house generates. But now not only that will give you value back . Richard Miles: 18:41 Right ? So sketch out for me, Daniel, I know you’re still in the testing phase of just making sure this works, but at a conceptual level, what is the idea? Let’s say if we have a moon base eventually that has several hundred people or even a thousand people, would it be like what you just described where you’d have these sort of mini units for each household, or is it envisioned that you’d build something like a water treatment plant using your technology just a lot bigger to service the entire base, how much thinking has gone on to, I guess, the scaling up of this type of technology to serve a relatively largish base. And then I’ll go ahead and ask my follow-up now is the plan that those would be constructed there on the moon, or would they be constructed here and then brought up there and assembled. Daniel Yeh: 19:23 I think all of those things that you mentioned are all possible scenarios, right? So right now NASA has planned is 2024 through the Artemis project first woman on the moon next man on the moon that by 2024 and by 2028 to have a sustainable presence on the moon, as a proving ground for technology so that we can put it the first human on Mars by somewhere around 2033. So what’s neat is that we get to have the moon to test these technologies before we just build something, think that’ll work and then do on Mars. So part of this is also that there’s going to be a gateway station, sort of like an ISS that circles the moon. So in terms of building out the moon base, there’s a number of ways it could go. And I think you always have to think economy of scale. You obviously, if you have a whole community and you want to put a treatment system in, in every household, it might be better maybe to aggregate the waste and then to have one unit, right, in that case. However, you can also see that this is going to be colony. That will slowly grow. Basically when we go to a place I go to the moon. First thing we’re trying to do is not die. It’s survival. And just like the first thing that will happen when we land on the Mars is trying not to die because Mars will find all sorts of ways to kill you. So as you get really good at not dying, you transition from survivability to sustainability, how do you actually sustain your presence there ? Using the, these amount of resources, costs, energy, generated the least amount of waste, recycle everything. So whatever technology that’s putting , putting up is probably need to grow. You need to have something that maybe is there initially serving one phase of the operation and maybe a smaller scale, and then sort of like Lego blocks, it will grow and be able to serve something larger rather than just shipping something, a mega sized unit overnight. So I think a lot of thinking needs to go in there thinking about how do we put something in there that will not only serve the needs of initial missions, but you get to basically lean on your investment and allow that initial investment to just grow. So that 5, 10 years down the road say, you know, that technology is outdated and basically kind of scrapped it. Richard Miles: 21:18 I’ve been talking to a number of folks on this podcast series and we’re all working diligently and feverishly on one aspect relating to space. How do we do X or how to do Y do you have an opportunity through NASA or through any other organizations to actually interact with other people in other disciplines, working on space technologies. In other words, do you get a chance to interact with doctors or chemists or biologists focus also maybe part of the Artemis program? Cause I would be fascinated to know, are there areas of overlap in which even though you’re in different disciplines, you’re actually may be trying to solve versions of the same problem. Daniel Yeh: 21:49 That’s is really interesting. So we work in this realm called Eclss that’s environmental control and life support systems. And we work in a subset of Eclss, which is basically water and waste management, but obviously the rest of Eclss in terms of like air revitalization and radiation. I m ean, those are all important things. And I’m also very interested in basically human physiology and psychology because at the end of the day, it’s about life support and mission success and how do what we do contribute to that. But how d o w ork other people do affect what we do? I would say probably right now, we’re so focused on just trying to get this initial piece of technology to work that haven’t had chance to really branch out as much. But I think this w ould just happen as the project grows and maybe I’ll do this through my son. He’s currently studying biomedical engineering and his goal is to do space medicine. Wow. A nd you think about, this is actually not that long in the future. M aybe in a few years from now, he w ould be up and running during this stuff, I’ll be learning from him. Richard Miles: 22:44 The biggest revolution seems to me in space, exploration has been the involvement of the private sector and specifically private space companies. And you’ve got this interesting dynamic going on. They obviously still depend on support for math then and oftentimes funding. But in many instances it looks a lot like a private sector initiative in which they’re kind of set their own priorities, set their own plans, get at least part of their own funding. So whether it’s SpaceX or Blue Origins or Sierra Nevada Space Corporation and others. And we were talking earlier before the show about licensing and so on. Has anyone expressed any interest in your technology from a private company that says, Hey, we want to develop some component of the space program. We really like what you’re doing, come work for us or develop this for us or license it to us. How much of role is that playing or is NASA still the major and kind of only driver in this event that we’re seeing? Daniel Yeh: 23:31 So right now we are working with NASA or our goal really is to help them fulfill the mission of Artemis is very ambitious schedule. But what you said there, absolutely I think will happen in terms of licensing of our technology. That’s co-developed with NASA to the private sector. So I anticipate that we’ll be working with the private sector as well, very soon, because I think right now, most of what the private sector is doing is getting from A to B, having a better way to get from A, to B lower costs. You can’t really reuse a rocket from A to B and back, but the question is going to be like, what do you do when you get on B? How do you sustain life there? And if what we’re seeing with NASA is any indication, it’s more complicated than anybody on earth has ever worked on. And we’ve gotten good at sustaining life on ISS, but nobody’s ever been able to sustain life on the moon for a continuous basis, right . A long, long period. So that’s going to be, I think, a challenge for all of humanity to do that. And definitely the private sector will be part of that. So there are not already developed solutions, but at times what happens in the private sector you don’t care about because it’s a proprietary, but if they’re not already developing those solutions, they need to be doing that. And I think there’ll be working with NASA to develop those. Richard Miles: 24:39 I got to ask before we close Daniel, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that in 2024 or sometime after that NASA calls you up and says, professor Yeh, we really need someone knows what they’re doing to install the first space toilet. Would you be willing to go to the moon and spend however long it takes to put one of your inventions on the moon? Daniel Yeh: 24:55 Absolutely, but I do hate roller coasters . So I’m not sure how I’m going to survive liftoff. Richard Miles: 25:01 So avoid the rollercoaster test for as long as you can and maybe NASA won’t notice. I got to say, it’s fantastic. What you’ve done. See progress that you’ve made since we first met you in 2014, I was glad to see that at least a couple of your members of your original team are still with you. I think right from new generator is fantastic and glad to see that and wish you all the best as you continue to research. And certainly as you continue this development for Artemis, Daniel Yeh: 25:23 Thank you, Richard, you mentioned members of the team and I just have to say that this podcast right now, is it me? I’m the person that’s sitting behind the microphone, but this truly has been a team effort from the get go . And I think I’ve been just very lucky to have had really good people, really good students that I work with. And students usually there’s a passion that drives them. They bring their own skill set and perspective to the team and oftentime my role is to just kind of steer them in the right direction. And it’s sometimes I just get out of the way and let them do their thing. So I’ve been very lucky to have that good people. I mentioned people on the original team. One of them is Robert Baer and he’s just been the key person behind the scenes. Richard Miles: 25:58 Well, that sounds perfect boss. Right? You inspire people and they need to step out of the way, right. And go have a sandwich or something. Right? Let your team, figured out the hard stuff. Daniel Yeh: 26:05 I think a good leader knows when to step out of the way, because you’re not necessarily the smartest guy in the room. And if you do your job, you shouldn’t be the smartest guy in the room. Richard Miles: 26:13 No , absolutely. I’ve heard that before. I’ve said it in the show as well. If you are the smartest guy in the room, something’s wrong, you know, you need to go find some other workers or organization, cause that’s probably not a good sign, but Daniel, thank you very much for joining us on Radio Cade and wish you the best of luck and hope to have you back on the show. Daniel Yeh: 26:28 Thank you, Richard. It’s been a pleasure. Great talking to you. Outro: 26:31 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists, Jacob Lawson.

What is it like to be an astronaut? We talk to former astronaut and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, who became the second sitting member of Congress to fly into space in January 1986 on the Space Shuttle Colombia. Nelson describes his training, his fellow astronauts, the highlights of the mission, and his thoughts on the future of space exploration. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:40 Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host Richard Miles. And today is part of space pod our series on the renaissance and space exploration. I’ll be talking to former astronaut, native Floridian, University of Florida graduate, and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, welcome to Radio Cade senator Nelson. Bill Nelson: 0:56 Thanks. It’s great to be here and it’s great always to talk about one of my favorite subjects space flight! Richard Miles: 1:04 Space flight right? And , um, we’re going to be talking mostly about space flight today, but I would be remiss in my duties as a host. If I didn’t mention to the audience, the rest of your very eventful life, which began in Florida and is mostly unfolded there. As I mentioned, you were of course , born in Florida, in Melbourne, you attended the University of Florida as an undergraduate. Then after that to Yale and the University of Virginia, you returned to Melbourne to start practicing law. You were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 and stayed there until 1991. Then you held several statewide offices in Florida. You ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000 and you served there until just last year, 2019. So that’s a huge expanse of time. The state of Florida has changed enormously in the last 50 plus years. So I thought maybe we’d start by what are some of the big, broad trends you’ve seen as a kid growing up, start with that up until now with regards to Florida. Bill Nelson: 1:57 Well, my goodness , uh , Florida has remade itself basically because the country has moved to Florida. And so when you look at a political reflection, you see that Florida is so evenly split, just like the country. South Florida is a very international community. You move further North up the East coast, you got a lot of former New Yorkers. You move over to the Southwest coast, a lot of Midwesterners that have come to Florida. And then as you get up into North Florida, it’s more like the old deep South. And so it’s such a varied state reflecting pockets of the entire United States. Indeed the Hispanic folks in Florida are a reflection, not a one particular Spanish heritage, but multiples of all Latin and central and South America, indeed, we are as much of a cosmopolitan mix as any state in this union. Richard Miles: 3:12 That’s absolutely right. I tell friends who are not from Florida. I said, you know, Florida’s really a microcosm of the entire country for precisely the reasons you mentioned really does have this incredible mix of people from other countries, people from around the United States itself. And then it makes for very interesting election, for instance, right? Senator Nelson, let’s talk about your time in space. It’s fascinating, great career you’ve had, but I’ve got to imagine that time and space. It’s one of the highlights and what I’d really like to know and like our listeners to know is the details. So why don’t we start with you’re one of the first, if not the first sitting member of Congress to go to space. So start from the beginning. How did that opportunity arise? And at what point did you say, Hey, I want to go? Bill Nelson: 3:54 Well, I was fortunate having been elected chairman of the space subcommittee and the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington at a time that NASA had just started flying the space shuttle and felt like that it was almost operational in the sense, instead of everything being experimental on each flight, that they decided to start flying members of the crew that were other than the full-time professional astronauts. For example, they started flying PhDs from the universities to conduct research. And so they got to the point that they decided to fly the chairman in the Senate and the house. And I was that chairman in the house, one, a Republican one, a Democrat to continue NASA’s bipartisan approach. And of course it was early in the space shuttle program. And the events that unfolded just 10 days after we landed on earth was the launch of Challenger. Challenger blew up 10 miles high in the Florida sky. And of course space flight with humans was then down for the next two and a half years tragedy was to strike again in 2003 with the destruction of the very orbiter that I flew on Columbia as it deorbited and started coming through the fiery heat of re-entry and burned up on the descent over Texas. So we’ve lost 14 souls just in the space shuttle program. And it’s an underscoring that spaceflight is risky business. You take a fantastic flying machine, like the space shuttle, but it is so complex. There were 1500 parts on the space shuttle call critical one parts, any one of which would fail. That was it. It was catastrophe. Needless to say, when we launched, I definitely knew I was in over my head and I were just hanging on for dear life. Richard Miles: 6:10 So you’re pointing out that two tragedies underscores that space was and remains a risky endeavor. So I imagine once the decision was made that the two chairman to respect the committee is going to go up. It was a little bit more complicated than that, right? They didn’t say, okay, well, there’s your seat over there , congressmen , right? You probably had to go through a battery of physical and cognitive tests and training and so on. What was that like? When did that start? What sort of training was it? What do you remember from those early days where you knew you were going to space and you had to be prepared for it ? Bill Nelson: 6:38 Every astronaut candidate has to pass extensive medical checks and psychological checks. As a matter of fact, I have only had one psychiatric examination in my life and it was as an astronaut candidate because they obviously have to make sure that you’re stable mentally. They can’t take a chance of somebody getting up in space and going nuts. For example, you’ve got to be tested for claustrophobia because you can’t have a crew member that gets claustrophobic because you’re tight, sealed up, no escape in a confined place for a long period of time. And the test for this is they see you up in a bag that has about three and a half feet of diameter. It has an air hose. So it’s inflated. They have you all wired up to see what your heart rate is, and they tell you, they’re going to seal you up in there for four hours and it’s dark and here you are. And so the only thing to do was just to curl up and start to go to sleep. And when I did that and they saw my heart rate was going down and after about 30 minutes, then they came in and got me because they saw that claustrophobia was not going to affect me. I’ve had some of the hot shot, military test pilots that are the astronauts pilots, usually the commanders and the next in command call the pilot. And I’ve had them tell me that they didn’t like that claustrophobia test one bit. And of course they’ve been in confined environments all their life in their military training, but fortunately it didn’t affect me. And so you go through all of that. Fortunately, in my case, I had only about six months to get ready. Normally a crew is together for a year. I had about six months. Fortunately I was already physically in fairly good shape. And so I joined in with the crew and it was just wonderful, I mean, today they are some of our best friends. We love each other. We stay in touch and they were going to be in a big event, down at the Nelson Initiative, down at the University of Florida last spring, but then COVID came. And so we delayed it until next spring. Let’s hope that COVID, doesn’t get in our way, but eventually I’ll have all of them into the University of Florida to discuss our various experiences. Richard Miles: 9:26 And tell me Senator Nelson, where did this training take place? It wasn’t a Cape Canaveral, was it? Or was it in Houston or where, where did you do this training? Bill Nelson: 9:32 It was primarily in Houston, but of course it included the Cape as well, especially when we did the practice countdown . Richard Miles: 9:41 So let’s talk about that. Your actual launch date was January 18th, 1986. And I understand there were a couple of attempts before that, right? Bill Nelson: 9:50 January 12 is when we launched, we landed on January 18 and 10 days later, January 28 , Challenger launched and blew up. And yes, we have the dubious record of the most delayed flight with the most scrubs of any American space flight . We started on December the 19th. It was scrubbed. We went all the way down to T minus 13. I had actually braced my body for the ignition of the main engines that T minus six. And then I heard the launch controls say on the microphone that we are recycling to T minus 31 minutes, and we never got off the ground that day. They gave everybody off for Christmas. We came back early January, the next one, lo and behold, we had a malfunction. Then the third one, another malfunction. The fourth one, we went to the launch pad in a driving Florida rain storm or strapped in ready to go. In case a hole appeared in the clouds. We were going to punch through, turned into a driving Florida lightning storm. And I could see the faces of my crew members with the flashes of lightning through the windows. And we’re sitting out there on top of all that liquid hydrogen, and they wanted to get out of there. Finally, they came and got us the fifth try a beautiful Sunday morning. The weather’s cooperating at the Cape and our two emergency abort sites over in Spain and inaudible in Africa. And , uh , we launch into an almost flawless six day mission only to return to earth and then Challenger launches and blows up. And that was a bad day. Needless to say, Richard Miles: 11:44 I had not realized that you was only the fifth time that you launched. Psychologically that must’ve been tough because I imagine every single launch day, you’re up at some godforsaken hour to get all ready to go out. There you go out to the launch vehicle, and then you come back and the fifth trial , when did you switch to the onboard computer? It’s just like after 30 seconds and then, you know, you’re going right. What did you feel then? Bill Nelson: 12:06 Well, it’s amazing. There are so many things that can go wrong. That what the astronauts do is you just steer yourself not to dwell on any of that. Otherwise you’d be distracted too much. And the first time went down to 13 seconds. We found out after the fact that had the sensor been correct, that it was a gambling problem. Fortunately, the sensor caught it. They scrubbed the mission, but nobody was paying any attention that that morning it was in the 40 degree range. Remember that’s what got Challenger was the cold temperature, 36 degrees at launch. And that 36 degrees was enough to stiffen the rubberized gaskets that went around the joints of the solid rocket booster. And the hot gas is flowed through that and burned into the big external fuel tank of hydrogen and oxygen. And that’s what destroyed it. We weren’t paying any attention to the weather on the first try. Second try, they go down to 31 seconds and alert supervisor had watched and saw that the locks line was too cold and took it upon himself to stop the count. And when they go back in and try to find out what happened, lo and behold, we had drained 18,000 pounds of liquid oxygen, and we wouldn’t have had enough fuel to get to orbit the third time we’re scrubbed for a different reason. I think it was the weather over in Spain and Africa. They go in, nobody’s paying any attention. They start taking all of the oxygen and the hydrogen out of the external fuel tank. They found out that a temperature probe in the ground equipment had flowed through the lock slide , into a pre valve at one of the three main engines and stuck it in the open position. Had we launched that day, it would not been a good day, not going up hill, but once we got to orbit, when the three main engines cut off simultaneously, one of the engines would not have cut off and it would blown the rear end of the space shuttle to bits. And so the fourth try, as I said, was this driving Florida rain storm that turned into lightning, needless to say that beautiful day on the fifth try, boy were we happy campers going up hill to orbit. Richard Miles: 14:45 I’ll bet, tell us about those six days. I mean , what were the highs and lows of that experience or is it all a blurred? Did you just start working immediately? And what stood out to you from that six day period. Bill Nelson: 14:55 Every minute on orbit is planned. So you don’t waste a second and they build in the time for you to get ready to go to sleep and to have enough time to sleep. And of course, you’re not sleeping at night because every 90 minutes you’re orbiting the earth and a half hour of that in the dark and the shadow of the earth. And about an hour of that, is in the sunlight. So you put on eye shades and all of that stuff, but every minute is planned and I had 12 medical experiments. So I was very focused on everything that I was supposed to do. I had a protein crystal growth experiment that was sponsored by the Medical School at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. That was a cancer research experiment. I did the first American stress test in space. I actually ran for 40 minutes on a treadmill and that’s not particularly easy in zero G, but all of that was just so fascinating to me. It was just such a great privilege for me to participate and do these kinds of experiments. And so everybody had their own assignments and the crew is very, very busy. Richard Miles: 16:15 Did you have any chance at all, Senator in that six days to just be reflective for a few minutes? I mean, just to enjoy the beauty of being out there or were you just go, go, go the entire time? Bill Nelson: 16:25 Believe it or not, because you’re so busy, you don’t have time to get to the window. So what I would have to do is cheat on my sleep and everybody would be asleep and I’d be very quiet and float up to the flight deck and get in front of the overhead windows and just watch the earth go by. And so of course, those memories are seared into my mind’s eye. Uh , my daughter who has a beautiful voice had made a recording for me and I had a Sony Walkman and I had the earplugs so that I wouldn’t be disturbing anybody. And I’d float there in front of the window, watching the earth go by as we orbited every 90 minutes and I’d be listening to my daughter. And I thought I was in heaven. I mean, it was something. And of course, looking back at earth, it’s so beautiful. It’s so colorful. It’s so alive. It’s this creation in the middle of nothing. And space is nothing. Space is an airless vacuum that goes on and on for billions of light years. And there is our home, it’s the planet. Richard Miles: 17:39 It’s a great story. Looking forward to where we are today. You noted that the two space shuttle explosion basically set the program back NASA back for quite a while, but then it returned. And we now have this new for the last 10 years, private companies getting involved SpaceX and Blue Origin and so on this public private partnership, where do you see the future of the space program going whether public or private, what is NASA’s role going to be? What should it be? And what do you think is possible in let’s say the next 10 years? Bill Nelson: 18:09 Well, fortunately after having flown, and once I got to the Senate, I had a hand in charting that course a Republican Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchinson. And I alternated when she was in the majority she’d be chairman. And when the Democrats were in majority, I’d be chairman. And the two of us worked together. We didn’t work as R’s and D’s. We worked together for the nation’s space program and we charted the course in the NASA legislation of 2010, that set us on the dual course that we’re all on right now, which is to get out of low earth orbit and go explore the heavens . And that’s the Artemis Program that we’ll go back to the moon. But the goal is Mars in the decade of the 2030s as articulated by President Obama and that’s with humans to Mars, the dual track is to let and have commercial companies develop spacecraft and rockets to get us into and explore low earth orbit, manufacturing, the international space station, drug research, all of those things. And so that is what the legislation of 2010 did. And that’s the course that NASA is on right now. And it’s an exciting one. The new rocket, we even specified some of the considerations of utilizing the technology that would be applicable coming out of the space shuttle so that you saved money. And thus we have what is called the space launch system, which is the monster rocket, the largest, most powerful rocket ever with the human spacecraft on the top, which is called Orion. And that’s the one that we’ll launch in a couple of years. And in the meantime, we’re seeing commercial companies such as SpaceX and Boeing that are launching cargo and now crew to the International Space Station instead of NASA having to do those launches, although NASA obviously maintain strict control because of safety. So that’s where we’re going. We’re going to the moon use whatever properties there that we developed for the long venture to Mars. And then we’re going to Mars. Richard Miles: 20:39 One final question Senator Nelson when important factors from the very beginning of the space program, it’s the support of the American public, because these are tremendously expensive programs that can be dangerous programs. As we know from the history of exploration. And one thing that I’ve picked up on in interviewing a number of people is if we just break it down to sort of the technical requirements and the financial pros and cons and so on, it doesn’t seem to be quite enough, but when we introduce or when the American public thinks about the sense of exploration and adventure and discovery , very soon, you get a lot of Americans going. This is really something we need to do as a country, as a nation to be on the forefront of this exploration. And I’m sure you’ve seen the various documentaries, the Apollo 11 documentary that you can’t help, but being moved by our entire history of manned space flight. How important do you think that is? That kind of sense of discovery apart from the economic or technical benefits we get and is NASA doing a good enough job in convincing the American public that we really need to still be out there in terms of leaders in space exploration ? Bill Nelson: 21:39 Well, NASA can always improve its public relations, but let me tell you some of the things that NASA has done aside from the human space flight has been extraordinary. Look at the rovers, going all over Mars right now, look at the probes into the far reaches of the solar system. Look at the probes, going to and understanding the other planets and the moons of other planets. It’s just extraordinary, but you put your finger on something very important. The American people, they visualize the space program as human fly in space. So it was just phenomenal to me that once we had to shut down the space shuttle until we started flying humans just recently again on rockets, but the average person on the street in America thought, well, our space program’s over. When in fact we’re doing all of these gee whiz things with robotic spacecraft. So it comes down to a fundamental truth and that is no buck Rogers, no bucks. And what’s happening now that you have a bunch of buck Rogers going back up into space. It is going to rebut the American imagination into space flight again. And by the way, it’s American rockets that they want to see them going on because we’ve always, since we shut down the space shuttle, we’ve been sending Americans with international crews by means of the Russian space craft to and from the international space station ever since. But Americans want to see it launch from American soil, which we are now doing. And by the way, once you’re in space and you look back at earth and also is just emblazoned on my mind’s eye. I told you that it’s so beautiful, but as a political being, as a politician, as a public servant, as I orbited the earth, I look back, I didn’t see black and white divisions. I didn’t see racial divisions. I didn’t see religious divisions. I didn’t see all kinds of political divisions. What I saw was we are all in this together. As we orbited the earth, every 90 minutes, I saw that what we are citizens of the planet earth, and that ought to be very instructive to our politics in the future that we’ve got to overcome these divisions that be devils . Like we see our politics so divided. Like we see our racial situation so divided. We’ve got to come together. That was a lasting lesson for me, looking out the window of a spacecraft back at our home and our home is the planet. Richard Miles: 24:46 Senator Nelson, thank you very much for joining us today on Radio Cade also thank you for your service to our country, whether it’s in the halls of Congress or in a space shuttle, thousands of miles above the earth, really appreciate you joining us today and wish you the best. Bill Nelson: 24:58 Have a great day. And thanks for what you do with the Cade Museum. Richard Miles: 25:03 Well, thank you. It’s been an adventure, maybe not quite as exciting as going to space, but on some days it feels like that, but really appreciate you joining us. We hope to have you back on show. Bill Nelson: 25:13 Thanks. Outro: 25:15 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Will factories in space enable us to become a “multi-planetary species?” Yes, according to Aaron Kemmer, founder of Made in Space. In 2014 the company’s Zero-G printer was launched from Cape Canaveral and went on to successfully print the first ever part manufactured in space. Kemmer talks about space manufacturing, a moon base, and a potential trip to Mars. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:40 Will factories in space enable us to become a multi-planetary species. Welcome to Radio Cade . I’m your host Richard Miles today. We’ll be talking to Aaron Kemmer founder and chairman of Made in Space. Joining us from the Philippines. Welcome to Radio Cade Aaron. Aaron Kemmer: 0:54 Thanks for having me, Richard. I appreciate it. Richard Miles: 0:56 So before we get into the details of Made in Space, the company you founded, I got to ask why space is this something that fascinated you when you were a kid? Are you a science fiction fan or just something that sounded interesting? Aaron Kemmer: 1:09 Yeah, really , really good question. I think ever since I was a little kid, I’ve definitely been fascinated with space. Like many kids. I wanted to be an astronaut. And I think when I was five years old, I would tell a lot of people this, but I was playing with a toy space shuttle and jumping up and down on my bed. It was stainless steel, like a little metal hot wheel, but a space shuttle. And I flew off the bed. Didn’t want to let go of my space shuttle. And it like slammed into my skull. And I still got a scar, like a little Harry Potter scar right in my forehead with the giant line down the middle. And that reminds me ever since then, I’ve wanted to go to space. I grew up in Florida. So watching space, shuttles launch, it was kind of inspiring to me growing up, Richard Miles: 1:47 You founded, Made in Space in 2010. And I think by any measure, you had an extraordinary run in the early years, probably way more success than other startups do. So you founded the company in 2010, you created a 3D printing lab at NASA in 2011, you were awarded a grant to design a 3D printer for the international space station. And then that was launched. That mission was launched in September, 2014. And then a couple of months later in November, you successfully printed the first ever part manufactured in space. So that’s really a stunning record. Walk us through sort of the early months from the concept. When you came up with the idea of 3D printing as a viable concept that you wanted to work on to that moment in 2014, when you saw the part being printed in the space station, what was that like ? Let’s start with who came up with the idea and then how did it develop after that? Aaron Kemmer: 2:37 Really great question. Early back in 2010, when we started the company, there, wasn’t a lot of space startups and we’re kind of seeing a renaissance now, which is super exciting, but there was companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, but the general mindset was the way you become a millionaire in the space industry is you start out as a billionaire. You know , you have to be a billionaire to even play the game. So I think from the beginning, we were always maybe cautiously optimistic, but realistic that, Hey, maybe this, we really hard to get a space startup can off the ground. I think the reason we had like a good run of success was we had amazing kind of team, good team of co-founders there’s four of us. And then also just our founding employees early on, who were passionate about the mission. For me, the journey and to starting Made in Space started personally when, when I did my own like deep dive exploration on where is humanity today and where are we going to be in like 500 years? And w hen I thought about what we would be in 500 years is really clear that we’re going to be like a spacefaring civilization b ar and we don’t kill ourselves or something like that 500 years, w e’ll probably be on the moon, Mars, many moons of Jupiter and beyond, and really throughout the whole solar system. And I looked back o nto l ike that would probably start to happen a lot more in my lifetime. And I really just wanted to kind of be a part of that. And then when I met my co-founders, we started to l ike, look at the problem of what is it going to take to really journey out into space and have humans live all throughout the solar system and through talking to astronauts and people w ho’ve been to the space station like D an B arry t hree-time a stronaut. It was clear that manufacturing is something that’s going to be required. When humans, people came to America to live, they didn’t bring their house and everything with them, they built that stuff there. They just b rought the tools. And so starting with 3D printing seemed like a natural choice through talking to people like Dan B arry, having a 3D printer on the space station. He was on a space station three times would be an immediate effective, helpful t his for the astronauts building tools and stuff for them there. So I was pretty clear that that’s a good place to start. And so we just pick that and started working on it, to be honest. Richard Miles: 4:39 So I’ve got to mention it’s a little bit harder than just working idea and then calling up NASA, Hey , uh , my name’s Aaron , I’ve got a great idea. What do you think you obviously had some in some connection to NASA or what was that like getting your idea before the decision-makers there that eventually ended up on the space station? Aaron Kemmer: 4:56 Yeah, half of me is like, yeah that kinda is what happened. We did kinda just call up NASA and say, here’s our idea now that wasn’t like, okay, well here’s a contract . Let’s go. It was a multi-year process where we were communicating with NASA. We were fortunate enough to know the director of NASA Ames through a program that we went to a Singularity University, which was at NASA Ames. And he offered us a kind of free lab at NASA Ames. They have a research park where companies can set up labs and it was almost like the startup story of you’re in your garage. But we were in a NASA Ames garage, just tinkering with 3D printers, learning how they work playing around what might or might not work in microgravity because essentially like our first year and then the second year, because of the work that we did the first year, we were able to get a unpaid NASA contract to fly on the vomit comet with the 3D printer. And so we had to front the money. We actually were able to get sponsorships through some corporations, as well as I put it a little bit of cash. And that second year with the main milestone was testing these 3D printers in microgravity . And then through that, we were able to get the third year, like a small SBIR, small business innovation research contract to actually start developing a concept for a 3D printer that would go to the space station. And then the fourth year, because we had that small contract, we were able to get the larger contracts, actually put a 3D printer on the space station, which ended up happening in the fourth year. So basically each year it was like one small milestone after another, that led to the big one actually kind of happening. Richard Miles: 6:28 So for the wannabe startup CEOs , listening to the podcast, how much of this would you look back and say, well, actually that was a lucky break. And how much was result of following a plan that you already had a strategic plan? I mean, did you have step one, get the SBR grants step two and so on, or how much of this just sort of fell in your lap? Aaron Kemmer: 6:47 Hmm. Such a great question. Definitely like I think with any success, very mixed. I think we did have good fortuitous timing right around when we started the company was when NASA started to push under the Obama administration, if a startup or a company can do it, let’s try to have a contract with them, particularly around like 2012. I remember when we were negotiating the contract, there was some people within NASA that kind of wanted them to do it all on themselves. Others were like, no, we’re going to start trying to enable startups now. And that was very lucky timing that if we would’ve started at 10 years earlier, it would have been a lot harder. I would add the other thing. It’s easy doing multiple startups right now. It’s like very easy to overestimate what you can get done in like one year. So, one of my favorite Bill Gates quotes, and I really believe it “You can overestimate we can get done in one year, but really underestimate what you can get done in like a decade” during those years, it just felt so slow. It’s like, Oh man, in 2010, all we ‘d d one is played with 3D printers in a g arage. 2011, all we’ve done is like flown on a few planes with some 3D printers on 2 012, all we ‘d d one is designed a 3D printer in C AD. If you go to each year, it seems a little bit like slow, but over time it leads to bigger and bigger things. And now we’re designing and building and it g oing to be very soon manufacturing, large parts of satellites in space. It took a decade of work and we’ve been working on that for de cades. Ma ke t he same thing, goes for like SpaceX. We often call them a success. But I think the biggest success is they’ve been able to have two decades straight of just working on an idea and it’ s ex citing things can kind of happen. Yeah. Richard Miles: 8:17 Essentially for 2014, you just wanted to prove that you could print something, anything right in space. And now what, six years later you said you’re printing pretty large stuff. What is the immediate use of the technology that you have right now? And is there an upper limit to this? I mean, in theory, could you print almost anything that you wanted to, or that a , let’s say a moon base would need in space or is there some sort of limitation past which there has to be some sort of breakthrough at an engineering or physical level before you could print something or manufacture something there? Aaron Kemmer: 8:46 Really good question. So the first printer was basic abs plastic. And then since then we’ve launched several others, which has more complex aerospace grade plastics with those printers. We’ve actually done several different things. What are some basic tools like we printed a basic plastic wrench or experiments or games, for astronauts or education. The students have done programs where they could digitally launch hardware to space. And generally it takes a couple years to design and launch something to the space station like we did when we did it in those first couple of years, it was actually considered really fast. I think we broke a lot of records, but now with the 3D printers up there, you can get stuff up there and days design apart and digitally launch it by printing it. We’re now working on metal manufacturing machines that aren’t necessarily 3D printers, but are combined additive and subtractive manufacturing. We’ve actually manufactured with lunar dirt or dust taking that lunar basically and making bricks or roads or landing pads or eventually houses, I definitely think is feasible today. Getting to the point where you have a machine in space that can make everything you’d ever want and you don’t need anything else, but just the raw material feasible in our lifetimes. Probably not right now, but feasible. I’d say within the next couple of decades, when it will become useful. Yeah. Richard Miles: 10:04 Let’s get in the realm of speculation here. Now there’s a lot of enthusiasm right now because it’s success of things like Blue Origins and the SpaceX and other companies in this renaissance of space exploration. And from my very limited reading of what’s going on right now, it seems like maybe there were three strategic goals that I see bandied about. One of the main efforts is to actually make things in space that are g onna improve life here on earth. Something like a improved GPS systems or solar r ays that are g oing t o beam energy back to earth, that sort of stuff essentially doing in space stuff that will help us out on earth. Then a second one, not mutually exclusive s eems to be like, we want to go back to the moon. We want to establish a moon base. And on the moon base, we’re going to learn, we’re going to do research. We’re going to figure out how to actually sustain life on another planetary piece of earth. Right? And then the third one is sort of the most futuristic, right. Is l ike, wow, we’re going to build a moon base so we can go to Mars. So based on the experience that you’ve had over the last decade or so one, is that an accurate description of what you think the industry public private is heading towards one of those three goals? And then what is the realistic probability that for instance, we’re going to see a moon base in the next 10 years. Aaron Kemmer: 11:13 Really, really great, great description, Richard, on, I think the multiple aspects people are working on in space, I’ll start with the middle one. I’ve always been like a moon first guy for people in t he space industry. There’s often a debate. Now the m oon i s not really valuable. It doesn’t have an atmosphere it’s you never want to settle millions of people t here. Mar, we can terraform eventually and turn it into our second kind of earth. A nd which I agree. Mars is really, really exciting. And if you go into the future a few thousand years, probably definitely within the next 10,000 years, we’ll have a second or a foreign that we don’t blow ourselves up or something, but the mo on j ust ad d s o much value and it s p roximity of being able to iterate the technologies for whether it’s la unch t echnologies or like the SpaceX and Blue Origin rockets th at t h ey’re b uilding today, like St arship o r landing technologies or the technologies that Made in Space is building to sustain to build off the land. And so I definitely think that the moon allows us to kind of iterate and give us kind of speed to test things out. Th en i t kind of ties in a little bit into the first one. So one of the big reasons I t h ink SpaceX decided to do Starlink one is as a big business Starlinks the ir in ternet that kind of helps humans down here in ea rth, internet from space. But the other reason is because they have Sta rlink, i t gives them a real reason to launch a lot of rockets. By launching more rockets, you get to test out the technology more and iterate and kind of improve and faster iterations. Again is im portant for a t e chnology to drop costs, which for people like me and you to go to space, Richard, we’re going to need to see a couple orders of magnitude cost dro pped in there. So the internet in space communications in sp ace, a hundred billion dollar market today, things like satellite radio GPS, et cetera. I think we’ll continue to see that expand where more and more space is, i s helping people down here on ea rth. Especially the further out tha t we go. Eventually we’ll be mining asteroids for raw materials and not needing to do large scale industrialization down here on earth within the environment. Richard Miles: 13:10 Very interesting to me, because I think the last few nights I’ve been watching the Netflix series on the challenge. I don’t know if you’ve seen that at all, but it’s a four part series and it talks about the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. But what’s really interesting. It gives background where the space program was by the mid eighties. And one of the interesting points i t makes is that the public by and large was almost bored because they got so used to seeing the space shuttle go up and the space shuttle come back and it didn’t have the same sort of g lamor of say the Apollo program o f, of launching and putting people on the moon. So that one of the reasons why challenger disaster happened is because NA SA w as under so much pressure to show results. But then another part of the show talks about the results we re a ctually kind of thin in terms of what they’re able to accomplish on th e s pace shuttle missions. I mean, th ey’re a ble to do research and so on. So from a pu blic p erspective, you face a real conundrum with the space program is th at p art of this is y ou have to get people excited about it in almost a romantic way, right? Like the idea of exploration of doing things that no one has ever done before being first, right? Be cause t hat really gets people motivated. But on the other hand, you’ve got this real practical need to demonstrate results, right? To justify all the millions and billions of dollars that are going into this putting people’s lives at risk and so on. So how do you see that part of it, t he public relations, but also sor t of the popular view of space exploration playing out. Have you seen any indications that what we’re seeing now is more than just a nerdy engineer thing where we just love watching rockets land in the middle of the ocean on a little platform? Is that it, or do you think there’s a broader base of public support for the whole concept of really making a serious effort to build the infrastructure, to build the industry like what you’re doing? Right. So you’re creating now, not just three or four ginormous companies run by billionaires, but a whole ecosystem of hundreds of suppliers and companies that are all producing parts of the space program in an open market. They’re all not just working for NASA, but they’re working various competitors. So I know it’s a big unwieldy question with a lot of parts in it, but rea lly be fa s cinated be c ause yo u really joined or you st arted your company, right. As you said, jus t pi vot moment where all of a sudden people rea lized li ke, wow, the private sector can really contribute here in a way that just wasn’t possible even 20 years ago. Aaron Kemmer: 15:26 Yeah. It’s great. Merging essentially your Silicon Valley move fast mindset with a generally kind of slow moving industry in terms of public support. I mean, I’m definitely speculating here, Richard, but I do think it’s important to think a little bit more longer term than a single or dual election cycles for this. I think there’s obvious benefits to a nation going into space in terms of like defense and military reasons, you know, space is kind of the high ground. So to speak from a defense kind of standpoint, I think that that’s kind of important to the nation, but I think the much broader scope of building out the future for humanity and technologies , you build out in space, help people down here on earth. A lot like GPS is a great example. I mean , most people use GPS every day or at least every week. Another example you can have offshoot technologies, like did we develop a lot of technology and Made in Space that actually would be great. And we have helped people down here on earth through partnerships with like Lowe’s for instance. And it kind of in the past more larger scale things people know about is like memory foam that was kind of designed for the space station. And now it’s down here on earth and people’s like mattresses, right? Comfortable. I think like there’s a great opportunity here. And I applaud the public industry for supporting and thinking ahead, and that those that do. I travel all around the world a lot, normally not doing that now, but everywhere I go, no matter what country, I always spot people with like NASA t-shirts on. I think the reason that is, is because NASA and the work they’re doing and now private industry SpaceX, Blue Origin is just very inspiring. It shows that there’s not really a limit to humanity’s imagination going and landing on the moon when computers were basically the size of the Cade Museum is pretty cool to kind of think about thinking about like a future where like when you look up in the sky and you see a little twinkle on the moon and that twinkle is though city that’s kind of on there and it’s showing that we can expand and help and become a multi-planetary species. It’s really exciting kind of future. When I think about it and something that I’m just glad to be helping out and be a part of in some way, Richard Miles: 17:25 Last question, I’m sure you’ve probably been asked at least once, if five years from now NASA or a private company says, Hey, we need to build a big 3D printing factory on the moon and we really need people know what they’re doing and you’re offered the chance to go for a couple of years or even six months. Would you go? Aaron Kemmer: 17:42 Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, very scary and dangerous being attached to a rocket as an astronaut and launching, I mean, you’re watching the Challenger series . So , you know, it’s a very risky job, but given the opportunity, no doubt. I wanted to go to space my whole life. And I really hope that maybe it will happen in five years, but hopefully within the next 30 I’ll get an opportunity to go. Any people who have been to space made astronauts, you look down at earth and you see that there’s no fake lines in the sand that that’s all made up by humans and they get what they call the overview effect. And you realize that we’re all like one group humans and can add more empathy for others and understanding t his fake division that we all l ike create, call it fake, but it’s real, but it’s created by us. That overview effect i s really exciting. And I think the more we go to space, it’d be cool to have people experience that. Richard Miles: 18:30 Looking forward to doing a podcast with you on the moon in five or 10 years, if you can go to the moon and do a podcast on the moon, Aaron , thank you for joining us. You’ve had a phenomenal line of success with Made in Space and whatever you’re continuing to do now in that arena, I’m sure we’ll probably be successful. You join the renaissance at a very opportune time, but really look forward to seeing you succeed and thank you very much for being on Radio Cade. Aaron Kemmer: 18:52 Thank you, Richard. Yeah. And I’m looking forward to visiting the lunar Cade Museum in a couple of decades, Cade Museum 2.0 on the moon. Richard Miles: 18:58 As we can build it with 3D parts for cheap we’re in. Aaron Kemmer: 19:00 Alright we’ll help you with that. Richard Miles: 19:02 Look forward to that very much, Aaron, thank you . Outro: 19:08 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida . Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists Jacob Lawson.

We have learned a great deal about radiation here on earth, and that knowledge has paved the way for us to discover a solution to an even more difficult problem, radiation in space. Space explorers need to be able to move and work without worrying about radiation. Dr. Oren Milstein, CEO and Co-founder of StemRad, has created a wearable radiation shielding vest that takes up minimal space and protects the most susceptible vital organs — like bone marrow, reproductive organs and lungs — from the harmful effects of radiation. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio: 0:39 Welcome to Radio Cade, I’m your host, James Di Virgilio. We’re exploring a series on space colonization. And today my guest is Dr. Oren Milstein. He’s the CEO and co-founder of StemRad. And he’s working with radiation. When dealing with deep space. Radiation is one of the most important challenges facing astronauts and colonization of not only the moon, but also Mars. Dr. Milstein, welcome to the program. Dr. Oren Milstein: 1:05 Thank you, James. It’s really great to be here. James Di Virgilio: 1:07 Your research is fascinating. I think the best way for us to start out our discussion today is to talk about radiation in general. What is it? And why is it something that is so important to deal with? Dr. Oren Milstein: 1:20 Radiation is a topic that people really don’t know how to grasp . You don’t feel it. You can’t see it, it doesn’t have a smell or a taste, but it’s there it’s like something almost mystical, I would say, but there is a way to measure it specifically ionizing radiation. It’s ionizing because it creates occurrence. So it’s creates ionized particles that generates current and that current is something measurable and you could actually compute different doses of radiation based on that current. So really what it is, it’s photons. In most cases that strike, for example, a cell of the body and generate charge particles. In the case of the cell, it could be a free radicals that are able to create mutations within the DNA and therefore hinder a replication of that DNA and ultimately cause cell to undergo apoptosis or suicide, and also create higher susceptibility to cancer down the road James Di Virgilio: 2:19 When we think of radiation, most Americans, especially they think of the nuclear power plants, three mile Island Fukushima and of course, Chernobyl, maybe in the largest sense they think of an atom bomb and all of these cases, if radiation strikes, can you see it? Is there a wave of radiation you see coming at you or is it something invisible? Dr. Oren Milstein: 2:38 Radiation really is invisible in the spectrum that we’re talking about. It’s invisible. You have to understand that the ionizing radiation that we’re talking about is basically just another portion of the spectrum of light. So it’s invisible light . So to speak of a higher frequency that has penetrating power and wreak havoc within the tissue, that it, but it is a form of light and you have a spectrum, but that is not harmful at all. Within the spectrum of light arrange , that is not harmful. Is there a way to detect, well, basically radiation monitors sensors are what the modern world utilized to sense radiation. Back in the day of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and nobody had those capabilities. The radiation was just something that nobody even realized even the U.S. military had overexposed itself, not realizing until many years after the damage that was incurred in the soldiers unnecessarily. So , so we’re very lucky to have radiation monitoring in place all around the world in a way that today these sensors, our network to the point where you can almost not smuggle irrigation, emitting device into the U S through its courts or airports without the government knowing about it. James Di Virgilio: 3:51 And so let’s take a look at it. Maybe the most famous example of radiation exposure that wasn’t in wartime Chernobyl. I’ve had a chance to go to both Hiroshima and Chernobyl during the world’s cup. I went and visited Chernobyl and Ukraine. It was an amazing experience, a sobering experience. And one that taught me a lot about something I didn’t really know about, which is radiation, but while you’re walking around the site of Chernobyl, they know here in this town of Pripyat where most of the hotspots are, right? So you’ve got your Geiger counter It’s beeping, you’re walking around, it’s telling you what’s there. And they’ll say, Hey, don’t walk over there. Here’s a hotspot. Of course you can’t see it. You would never know. You would have no idea, right ? What’s around you. It’s completely invisible. But if you were to stand on that spot for enough time, it would really obviously, as you mentioned, wreak havoc. So I know that someone you learned from that was formative in your experience was one of the first responders. And one of the only people in the outside Soviet union world to come assist with the victims of Chernobyl, what did he learn? And what did you learn from that experience of radiation directly into first responders and those that were helping to save people from that disaster? Dr. Oren Milstein: 4:57 So really a Chernobyl was kind of like the inspiration for me that the start StemRad, even ahead of the Fukushima disaster, which served as the trigger for the founding of the company. I was deeply inspired by my professors by my PhD mentors experience Dr. Ira Reisner was basically on the tail end of his post- doctoral studies back in 1986, when he got a call that there’s been a disaster in the USSR, we’re talking about the days of the USSR still. And if he could get on a plane together with two U.S. physicians, Robert Peter Gale, and Dick Champlin, and try to treat those first responders that had gone in courageously and put out those fires within the reactor that exploded. If it could go out and treat them that the Russians, they don’t have the capability to treat them. And that specifically my professor, Dr. Reisner during his research, he found a way to transplant bone marrow that is not identical and still get a good outcome. And bone marrow was what the Russians needed to save these courageous firefighters because they were exposed to doses that really specifically wiped out their bone marrow, the bone marrow, being the most sensitive organ in the body when it comes to radiation, the most sensitive tissue that was wiped out to the point where their blood counts were really low falling fast. That is the body blood factory after all. And the only remedy the Russians were smart to realize that was bone marrow transplant patients. So they went over, this is before there was even any kind of diplomatic relations between Israel and the USSR . So Dr. Reisner was obviously deterred from going there and frankly didn’t even know how to go there. So they arranged for a plane for him that landed in Moscow. The first responders had been transferred to a hospital in Moscow, and that’s where he together with two other scientific advisors for StemRad today, Robert Peter Gale and Dick Chamblin, they harvested bone marrow from siblings, from brothers and sisters. Bone marrow is only half identical. And they put that bone marrow through the process for which professor Reisner, that’s his claim to fame, that this process of being able to remove immune cells specifically T-cells from within the bone marrow graft and in doing so enable tolerance so that the bone marrow graft given by the donor, in this case, brother, or sister to the recipient is accepted and not rejected within the body of the recipient. And also does not wreak havoc due to the presence of immune cells from the donor. So that was his specialty. But the only problem was that he had done this process only rabbits, very successfully. So he used certain molecule called peanut to gluten and actually to capture the T-cells from within the bone marrow graft . And they did that under conditions that were very difficult. He told me with very old age centrifuges in conditions that were only sending sterile. And this is the first time ever doing this in the human setting. And they’re doing this to save about 25 people that would die without it basically walking dead people. And they went through an arduous process and they were able to harvest that bone marrow removed about 99% of the immune cells transplant into the recipient . Unfortunately though this only prolong their life by a few weeks, ultimately they did succumb to what we call graft versus host disease. So the remaining T-cells within the bone marrow, those that were not successfully eliminated from the bone marrow grafts , we’re able to grow and expand and ultimately attack the recipients from the inside. Basically there wasn’t graph rejection, but the graph rejected the recipients and ultimately they died. Most of them. I think they saved only two people using that methodology. So, the human setting is many times more challenging than the animal setting. You have to remember the rabbits and mice . I said that they’re very uniform and their genetics, everything is almost binary in the way they respond. Either get no response or a full response. In humans, a lot more gray area. And yeah , that was a tragic outcome for that courageous effort , but left me with a thirst to try and solve the problem. James Di Virgilio: 9:05 And you mentioned something there, very interesting. One major thing I learned in Chernobyl is there were a handful of people who responded early, were highly exposed to radiation, but did not succumb to it. And as far as I knew, no one really knows why that is. It’s just that some people tend to be able to handle it better. And that’s fascinating to me, that’s sort of hard to understand, right? Because as the story you’re describing, you have these invaders come into your body, they basically get into your bone marrow. They change, as you mentioned, what’s going on in there. And then that’s, what’s going to wind up killing the patient. You’re mentioning in your research to we’re about to talk about, but can you speak for a second on how some people handle radiation better? Dr. Oren Milstein: 9:50 Yeah. It’s a very interesting topic that you were touching upon. Uh , we really don’t have a very good answer. What we know is that there is a whole distribution in those responses. So the responsiveness of the tissue of the person to a certain level of dose varies in a very big way to the point that you’re right. We do have what we call an LD 50 threshold, a dose at which 50% of the population would perish. But that’s just kind of like a mean, or an average, that though . So you have those being five fevers, for example. So you would have 50% dying and 50% not buying at all, why you would be subscribed to one group rather than the other, we can’t tell. But more than that, we have people that would die from doses as low as one grade or one seabird . If you use those units and then you have people that wouldn’t die from eight seabirds , and these people are from the same populace without any very different background between the two. So it’s really extreme that one could take potentially eightfold , more radiation than the other and still survive. Whereas the other succumbs and why this exists, nobody has a very good answer. There is a gender difference. Women are generally more susceptible to radiation than men. There is an age difference. Generally younger people, especially children are more susceptible than older people. There is a mass issue. Generally, if you have more body fat than you’re more protected, that’s for sure the case, if you compare an obese person to a very thin person and there’ll be, this person would be clearly more resistant in a significant way, people must realize that mass blocks radiation and does so in a good way. So radiation is not something you cannot block. You can definitely block it. Just a matter of how much mass you need to block it. So I just touched upon a three or four factors creating this variability within the populace , but it can add up to the extreme where you’re going to get people that are way more sensitive than the others. James Di Virgilio: 11:52 I mean that’s such a good 30,000 foot view of testing, anything medically, including something like COVID and you nailed it. Testing on animals is so much different than humans because each human is drastically different from another. And at times we don’t even know why their defenses may hold up better, but it does make it a challenge, which is what makes your research. I think so fascinating. So you take these stories, we’ve just talked about, you begin to develop a strong interest in them. You do your own studies on mice, but you do something very unique, unexpected. Even when you read about it today, it doesn’t seem to make any sense. Tell us what it was that you discovered. Dr. Oren Milstein: 12:27 So basically I had a strong desire to make sure that no first responder doing the courageous act that had been then Chernobyl would wind up with a lack of bone marrow following exposure. And my initial idea was to harvest bone marrow from each first responder that would potentially go into a nuclear disaster worldwide and store that bone marrow in a place that should he needed, or she needed. It could be transfused in their bodies. Bone marrow is very amazing in the sense that a transplantation is something that is able to work. And in the case of transplantation, we don’t transplant large amounts of bone marrow. We’re talking about small amounts of bone marrow that are transplanted. So today a leukemia patient that receives a radiation therapy and his, or her team , this was a wiped out. Should you send that person home without any kind of transplantation , then that person would perish within a week or so. So he or she would die from the treatment, not from the cancer. So what we do today is we basically harvest bone marrow from an identical donor that is identified through the bone marrow registry. And that donor doesn’t give all of his or her bone route . Doesn’t get half, just give a small, a tiny percentage of the bone marrow up to 5% of the donor’s bone marrow is given away. And that donor has lunch and goes home. Doesn’t suffer the consequences of giving just 5% of his or her bone marrow. Whereas the recipient that’s 5% or even lower, is able to replenish all of the bone marrow and all of the blood forming system to the point where that person lives for many years after due to that gift of life, so I thought quite nicely , why not harvest bone marrow from all of these courageous responders and freeze it, and whenever they need it, we transplant it. And then you wouldn’t have the problem of locating an identical donor because each potential victim would already have his own bone marrow stored. I started looking at doing that, but that turned out to be a potential logistical nightmare to harvest bone marrow from so many potential individuals around the world who really don’t know who is going to be going in, where at what given point in time to save the day when the numbers add up, it gets to millions of people. They would have to harvest bone marrow from. And then you look at the side effects of harvesting bone marrow that one to 10,000, you have severe complications. So you’re looking at a situation where for sure you’re going to have in the process of trying to save these people already severe complications . So I just went back to research and continued working on mice with my research was basically finding ways to enable engraftment of bone marrow. That is not identical, basically to induce tolerance towards mismatched bone marrow grafts . And then I stumbled upon an amazing observation that whenever I was irradiating the mice, there were some times mice that would survive even without bone marrow transplantation, maybe one to 10 mice or so they would just go on and live without any transplant. And I’d tried to figure out what was going on. And then I learned that in the process of irradiating, sometimes I leave a segment of a mouse outside of the radiation field, and that segment could be as minimal as just the pale of the mouse . So it was enough for me to leave the tail of the mouse outside of the radiation field to have that mouse recover from radiation injury without introducing new bone marrow into that mouse. And ultimately what I figured out and what was basically also established in the literature that bone marrow within the vertebrae in the tail of the mouse is of a quantity that is in excess of what is necessary to survive. And that quantity is two and a half percent. So you need as little as two and a half percent of your bodily bone marrow. I assume it could say it’s identical and it’s not rejected and no complications to regrow your bone marrow and return to normal blood counts and as little as one month. So that was basically my understanding that if you can save a person by introducing so little identical bone marrow into his or her body, why not protect that same amount of bone marrow within the body of the first responder while he or she is responding to an event. And that is something that I really latched on because I realized that it solved a big, big problem. The problem of being able to shield from radiation, how do you shield from radiation in a way that you don’t inhibit the performance of the first responder? Sure, you can put the first responder in a nuclear bunker, but that won’t do so well for his job definition. And the past people have tried to invent suits that protect all the body, but these suits do very little to block the radiation. Even a 100 pound suit, a 200 pound suit will do nothing to block gamma radiation because that mask would be spread out throughout your whole body. But given this finding that it’s enough to protect the bone marrow, to get recovery of the individual, we can focus shielding just on where bone marrow is. And then I studied the distribution of bone marrow within the human body, the amazingly good 50% of the body’s bone marrow resides within the hip region of the individual. And that lends itself to the personal protective equipment that we later developed. Because now you don’t have to this mask all over the body of the individual, you can focus a significant amount of shielding on a specific area of the body. So our product is called three 60 gamma product. What it does, it puts basically about 15 kilograms or about 30 pounds of mass around a minimal area of the body, as small as 11% of the body surface area. And in doing so you basically create protection. That’s on par with a suit that would weigh half a ton. So these half ton suits were never brought to market because it would never work. But this solution is something that I felt was reasonable and it could be very meaningful for protection of first responders. James Di Virgilio: 18:28 What you said there is mind boggling on so many levels. You go back to the Chernobyl story and there was true, just incredible heroic acts that occurred that you learned about there from people that lived in Ukraine that were living under the USSR that were not fans at all of the Soviet union that knew that in their community, they had people that were in trouble that knew they were going to die. That went in right underneath the reactor, right into the reactor long exposures to save other people’s lives, truly moving stuff. They did so wearing rudimentary hazmat suit or what people think of when they think of people going into a nuclear disaster. But what you’re describing is basically like a back brace, or if you like to lift weights, something you would use when you’re squatting, it’s very minimal, it’s wearable. You can go in. And this discovery you’re saying that you can protect the main part of your bone marrow, which is in your pelvic region, as you mentioned. And just by protecting that from radiation, your body then is able to fend off the rest of the radiation you receive in the rest of your body. That’s essentially what’s happening right? Dr. Oren Milstein: 19:31 In effect. The result is exactly what you described, at the biological level what happens is that the bone marrow that is rescued by this shielding within the hip region is able to proliferate to multiply in the hours and days and weeks following the exposure. And then when it reaches a certain level, then the cells, the bone marrow STEM cells, if you will, they’re able to enter the bloodstream. They leave the bone cavity and they migrate into the bloodstream. And then they know how to hone directly towards bones that were wiped out by the radiation. And then they settle within these empty bones. If you take the bone, you take a cross section , you can see after the radiation it’s empty and these small cells know how to repopulate these empty areas. And they proliferate like mad. So on average, each STEM cell is giving you 10,000 better cells. And that process goes on until the bone are full of red prosperous bone marrow within as little as one month. James Di Virgilio: 20:30 That’s incredible quite the discovery. And a question comes to mind, in the Chernobyl disaster as in space, which we’re about to talk about. You had very limited times, you could have a worker go in. Now, the Russians were incredibly rudimentary. They were essentially making things up. There’s a road in Pripyat out that they knew was heavily radiated. And they would say, drive 110 miles an hour, get out of your car, spend exactly four minutes, cleaning something up, get back in, get out. Right? That was obviously a bad idea, but there is a reality that there’s only so much time, a first responder should be spending in an environment like this. Does the gamma three 60 belt, ss this able to allow first responders to spend more time saving people without changing a shift? Or is it a scenario where they spend the same amount of time? They just have protection. Now we know that 15 minutes will be safe, so to speak. Dr. Oren Milstein: 21:17 So that’s a question that we get from our customers all the time. So they want to know how much longer they can stay in. And what I like to answer is that even in Chernobyl, they were very cognizant of the radiation. It’s not sometimes the first responders are portrayed as, as people that didn’t know anything about the radiation just went in blindly. No, they knew very well. And actually they went in, in shifts of 12 minutes, in Chernobyl and those 12 minutes had everything been like a uniform spread of the radiation. It would have been okay. But what happened was they went in and groups of let’s say 10 people with only the commander observing his radiation monitor and the other nine spread out on the roof of the reactor. So the problem is that the radiation deposits or the radioactive material, the fall out was not uniformly present on the roof of the reactor. You had piles of debris, highly radioactive, but then you had the areas that were not so radioactive because the radiation dose, the dose rates declines exponentially with distance, right? So if you increase your distance twofold from the pile of rubble , then the radiation decreases fourfold . So what do you see is a crazy distribution of sickness within this group of 10, you would have seven that are unscathed really. And then three that were standing near the rebel, even for a few seconds. And they received that high dose of radiation. It’s really a matter of uniform or non-uniform exposure. So with these first responders, they can never know if it’s going to be uniform or non-uniform and therefore they must have protections. My pitch to customers is go in as you plan to go in under the assumption of uniform radiation, but should it not be uniform you’re protected. To what extent you’re protected theoretically? You could stay twice as long as what you would have without the protection. But I would never add to the case for the first responders to go in longer than what they had planned. I just want them to go in knowing that even if their plan was not accurate given the circumstances, there able to survive. James Di Virgilio: 23:21 Yeah. And that’s definitely a comfort, like you mentioned, in Chernobyl, all those first responders, there’s a monument to the firefighters nearby who all perished, you went in knowing exactly what they were doing. Dr. Oren Milstein: 23:30 They all knew exactly what they were doing, James Di Virgilio: 23:33 Right. Knowing it was a death sentence. Dr. Oren Milstein: 23:35 There are a lot of people belittling how much they knew, especially in America, the USSR was not the perfect place, but you had people that were heroes there. And these people were heroes. James Di Virgilio: 23:43 Yeah true heroes. And again, people that politically oftentimes did not align at all with what was being done, had to go in, could have attempted to run away, fight, take whatever punishment, but they didn’t. They responded immediately knowing that death was certainly the sentence and attempt to rescue others, really amazing stuff. And your innovation obviously is helping that. And now we’re going to talk about space and space colonization. So astronauts of course are facing radiation. Right? Once we leave the Earth’s atmosphere in the magnetic field, the radiation gets to be serious. It gets to be much more serious. The closer we get to the sun, as we have cosmic galactic radiation, that’s bad, that’s really bad stuff. Right? Solar flares, things like that. So you had to develop something that was a little bit different, right? You couldn’t have used the personal protection device in the same way. Instead you developed device that had to be a little heavier, a little bulkier, but still does the same thing. What were some of the challenges for developing protection in space? Dr. Oren Milstein: 24:36 So that was a tremendous shift in the company’s overall outlook to the market from dealing with a, the worst case scenario of a nuclear disaster. Suddenly we’re also dealing with the best case scenario of sending people to Mars. And that’s what NASA wants to do today. So being involved in both worlds really creates a great sense of fulfillment. But to your question, the technical challenges were quite significant, but surprisingly, not something that we could not overcome. And I saw we could from day one. So we collaborated with Lockheed Martin who was building the spacecraft to take people back to the moon and onto Mars and lucky for me to have good physicists working for me. And it was very apparent to us that the radiation threatening space is quite different than the radiation threat here on earth. You’re concerned less about gamma radiation, more about radiation emanating from the sun and from the galaxy and this radiation, and this is something I didn’t know, actually going in is not photons. You’re talking about actual particles ion , mostly hydrogen plus. So H plus particles that are huge compared to photon . So you’re talking about something that millions of times larger than a photon, huge particles and coming at energies much higher than that, of a photon and gamma radiation. So it sounds very scary and I thought going in wow, but the very quick, I was comforted to know that even though they’re so energetic, because they’re so big, you’re able to block them, you’re able to shield against them. So they don’t seep in easily through the atoms in the shielding material like photons do. So photons are able to seep through bathrooms of the led in the shielding here. They’re so big, it’s pretty easy to trap them. Now the best material for trapping photons here on earth is lead. Specifically Virgin lead. That is pure lead. That’s what we use in a three 60 gamma solution, but in space, should you use the lead? You’re going to create what we call secondary radiation. So the particles are going to strike the lead , then create a gamma wave or an alpha wave or a better wave, which going to be dangerous in itself. So better to use what we call low Z materials . So atoms, with a smaller number of protons within them and an atom with the smallest number of protons is obviously hydrogen. So use hydrogen to block hydrogen. That’s basically what we’re looking at today. So we basically used almost, I would say off the shelf, polymers such as polyethylene, you could even use water by the way, any material that is rich and hydrogen is able to effectively block hydrogen atoms or ions coming from the sun with creating minimal secondary radiation. So that was one challenge. The material challenge was easily overcome. And then we had the whole issue of what are you going to protect? Are you going to protect the same organs they are protecting here on earth? Or are you going to look at the picture a bit differently here ? So, given the nature of the relation space, we were actually driven in the direction of looking at a bit differently because you do have the threat of a high dose coming from the sun, just like a high dose coming from a Chernobyl reactor. That creates what we call acute radiation syndrome, which is wiping out the bone marrow and deaths within a month or two, but in parallel, you also have radiation coming from the galaxy, what we call galactic, cosmic rays, and they’re coming in regardless of any sun activity. And it’s a constant bombardment of ion sometimes bigger than hydrogen has a biggest lead by the way, coming in from supernova in the galaxy. But they’re coming in at a very low dose rate . But if you’re looking at a long duration mission, not the mission of a week to the moon, like the Apollo astronauts , but a mission to Mars, that’s a three year round trip, then you’d better try and mitigate as much of that low level, dose as well. So here we realized we’d be better off having a solution that protects against both . So having something that is able to minimize the chance of acute radiation syndrome, vis-a-vis Chernobyl, but also help as much as you can in the dose. That’s incoming on a daily basis over the duration of three years. So working with Lockheed Martin and given the luxury of microgravity , we decided to expand upon the three 60 gamma solution and going from a hit belt, we went all the way up to a vest , a vest that protects from under the hip and all the way into the chin of the astronauts and in doing so, protecting the bomber, but also vital organs, such as the lungs, such as the stomach and the gastrointestinal system. And in the woman also the very sensitive breast tissue and ovaries, and in doing so you’re shielding the bone marrow and preventing that horrible death like in Chernobyl, but also contributing to the reduction of the likelihood of cancer within those organs in a very significant way. So what we have is instead of a heavy metal like lead , we have polyethylene instead of just the belt , we have a whole vest . James Di Virgilio: 29:33 And what is this vest way ? And are the astronauts wearing this every day? Only when they go out for a space walk, what does that look like? Dr. Oren Milstein: 29:40 Yes, that’s something that is still evolving. As far as how they’re going to use it, but the weight is 27 kilograms for a larger male, maybe 22 kilograms for a smaller frame, female. So ballpark 50 to 60 pounds of mass. But bear in mind that it’s just mass. There is no weight in space and we’re using that to our benefits . It’s never too heavy. So whenever I wear this vest here on earth, it’s pretty bad. But in the ISS, we have one vest on the station right now, circling earth, there it’s meaningless, but what is not getting less is the launch mass . So you want it to be light for the purpose of not burdening the launch with the additional mass that you could avoid. So having it weigh not as much is a big boom for whoever’s launching this mass in this case, the NASA where it costs a crazy amount of money to launch mass for the lunar environment outside of earth gravity, well, it’s currently $50,000 per pound. So any pounds you can take off the weight of the garment is really appreciated. And we’ve done that. So we’ve capitalized on the body self shielding. So we will be realized that you want to protect all these organs, but some of the organs are more protected naturally than others. Meaning that you have organs that are more concealed by the body’s tissue than others. On one extreme, you have the woman’s breast tissue, which is completely exposed to the outside environment. So you need to have a lot of artificial shielding. So that’s where the vest is really thick , but then you have areas that are naturally concealed, like parts of the gastrointestinal tract, like parts of the bone marrow, specifically the anterior bone marrow is quite well shielded. So we created a variable thickness that accommodates the natural shielding properties of the body and in doing so, we reduced the potential mass of about 50 kilograms to just 27 kilograms. And that’s part of our patents that was also employed in the 360 gamma solution that had we not utilized this understanding, but then it would have been almost twice as heavier and really a no-go for first responders. James Di Virgilio: 31:42 That’s really interesting stuff. Weight, obviously anyone who’s a pilot understands the importance of weight , even here just flying right. Sub the Earth’s atmosphere, low orbit, and then of course, going to space even more so $50,000 per pound, you just shaved off 25 pounds. I know you’re saving a couple million dollars there. So looking at how to use it, I want to go back to that. You mentioned we’re not totally sure how to use this yet. So NASA space X, anyone working on space exploration has to deal with what you just mentioned, shielding the spacecraft from radiation, and then also shielding those who are living at the astronauts any dwelling you build any structure you have, they must be shielded. So do we have any suggested ideas of how we would use these vest once we’re up in space? I land on Mars. What is my daily life potentially looking like when it comes to radiation? Dr. Oren Milstein: 32:29 Right. Initially I was thinking that this would be worn only during solar particle events, what we call SPE and layman term, maybe solar flare is more acceptable. These events occur on average a couple of times a year, and usually they’re benign, but sometimes they’re quite awful on the magnitude of going in such a Chernobyl reactor . And the problem with these eruptions of the sun is that they’re really not foreseeable. There is a correlation with the number of dark spots that you count on the sun, but sometimes it could be like very few dark spots, but still you have a solar particle events and astronauts they have just between 30 minutes and one hour warning before it hits them. That is a small amount of time, but we feel it’s enough time for the astronauts to be able to wear their vests. Should they be on hand. And then they have to wear it for the duration of the solar particle events , which could be a day, which is pretty long in itself, but it could be up to two weeks. And that’s where the product comfort comes into play. There are dynamics of the product and that’s exactly what’s being tested on ISS right now. Is, is this something that you can wear for more than a day for more than a week, maybe even, and that’s something that’s being tested. We invested a lot of effort making it comfortable and flexible. It’s comprised of 15,000 parts that each part moves independently of the other so that you create a fluid like motion. It’s a really nice, very nice solution that we hope to also display at the Academy museum very shortly. But to answer your question, yes, whenever there’s a solar particle event , it will be worn, but from talking with astronauts more and more, I realized that if they find it comfortable, they’re going to wear it whenever they go to bed. Even if there’s not a solar particle event , just to avoid the background radiation that I mentioned from the supernova, as much as they can, no , they won’t wear it for the whole mission because at the end of the day, it is quite a bulky garment, but they’re going to wear it whenever it’s critical, vis-a-vis solar particle events, or when they’re sleeping. That’s a vision that I currently have on the way to Mars. You’re looking at a three year mission. You can have solar particle events on the way there when you’re there. And on the way back, they’re going to have at least a handful of solar particle events. It’s going to be very important to have the vest on hand, to prevent in an extreme case fatalities during the mission in a more likely case to reduce the likelihood probability of cancer in their bodies, years after their mission is done. James Di Virgilio: 34:52 And it begs the question, why not shield the structure they’re in or the spacecraft they’re in from these types of radiation events? Is it a weight issue? Why not create a coating on the craft or the dwelling? Dr. Oren Milstein: 35:06 So that was really the direction of many, many scientists over the years. I would say that there were a few that try to do what we’re doing. Those people that tried, that didn’t have our methodology of selection , shielding. But to answer your question, why not shield the whole craft? Well, we calculated that to get the same effect on the Orion capsule, which is massive flagship to the moon and beyond built by Lockheed Martin. So you can either take four vests in aggregate weigh about 200 pounds, or you can add 14 tons to the shielding, of the vehicle. So that’s basically the number we’re looking at. The comparison is extreme. You just would have to double the weight of the vehicle, going back to the calculus of how much a pound or a kilogram costs to deep space, about $50,000 for a pound. The number becomes catastrophic for any organization. That’s trying to go outside of earth gravity well. So it’s really not possible at all. At least if you’re doing it on earth, if you’re doing it on the moon, now you can send an unshielded that aircraft and possibly shield it on the moon. And then the gravity well is not so bad and go on to Mars, but you’re talking about a very difficult situation compared to having these vests on hand. James Di Virgilio: 36:17 Quite elegant solution, as you just mentioned, there’s potentially no exploration of Mars at all, unless you have a way to do it more efficiently. And that’s exactly what this solution is providing. You can see this vest for yourself, if you Google Astro rad, it’ll pop right up. You can see images of it. People actually wearing it. Get a look forward of course, as you mentioned, you guys are on like kind of the final tweaking phase to see what’s it going to look like? How might you reshape it? But it’s quite remarkable. Obviously space colonization is going to be something that amazingly, it still feels amazing to me, right in our lifetimes is pushing forward rather aggressively to hear your story today, Dr. Milstein going through Chernobyl radiation, bone marrow space. It all seems so big, but remarkably you’re answering a lot of questions in ways that are quite compelling using evidence to back up what you found. Just absolutely fascinating stuff. It’s been great to have conversations with you. We at the Cade look forward to potentially seeing some of your stuff here on exhibit at the museum. Obviously we look forward to keeping in touch with you, Dr. Milstein, CEO, co-founder of StemRad. Again, you can find this stuff online. Definitely check it out. Thanks for being with us today. Quite the insightful episode. Dr. Oren Milstein: 37:26 No thank you, James. It was a pleasure talking with you and I hope that information is going to help other innovators and entrepreneurs and making the mission even safer. Outro: 37:36 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

A public private partnership in Space. What does that look like in Florida, the rest of the country, and the world? Part two of our series on the renaissance in Space Exploration features Tony Gannon, the Vice President for Research and Innovation at Space Florida. Tony reveals how our new space ecosystem pairs NASA, with billionaires, and corporate space mavericks, to yield an extensive infusion of innovation and capital…transforming the future of space travel and dramatically reducing government costs. TRANSCRIPT: Intro : 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles : 0:38 Astronauts landed on the moon 50 years ago, and we have never stopped looking toward the stars, imagining what the future holds far beyond earth, launching into Radio Cade’s Space Pod, and step inside the future of humanity’s journey into deep space. Meet the innovators and visionaries who are charting a bold new course to the moon. Then to Mars and beyond discover the revolutionary technology that will get us there and see how it’s already transformed life here on earth. Today, I’m speaking with Tony Gannon , vice president of research and innovation at Space Florida. Tony reveals how our new space ecosystem pairs NASA with billionaires and corporate space mavericks to yield an extensive infusion of innovation and capital transforming the future space of travel and dramatically reducing government costs. Welcome to Radio Cade, Tony. Tony Gannon: 1:25 Thank you very much, Richard. It’s an honor to be on your podcast. Richard Miles : 1:28 So Tony, before you tell us about getting to space, tell us about getting to the United States. You were born in the UK, you’re raised in Ireland. You’ve spent some time in Spain and France. How on Earth did you end up in Florida? Tony Gannon: 1:40 That’s a great question. And I’ll try and be very brief for the sake of your audience, Richard. So I have that mixed background, which made me set aside diverse in nature. And so when my wife and I decided we were getting married, of course we couldn’t do that in any logistical fashion. We decided we would go to Florida, have a vacation with some friends and get married while we were here. My wife’s twin brother lives here in Cocoa Beach, Florida. And it seemed like the occasion of marriage, what an ideal situation. So we did that. Got married, and while I was here, my wife often jokes . She said, I think I became a widow overnight, but I was space widow, because I literally spent two weeks every day going up to the space center, absolutely enamored with the space program about what could be achieved, but really having no idea that I could ever be a part of it. But I think a love was born my heart for it. And I said, I , somehow, I’m going to work out a situation whereby I can work in the future in the space industry. Richard Miles : 2:37 It’s a great story. And I know that you wrote that you witnessed the 1969 moon landing, I presume as a child and that made you want to play some sort of a role in the space program. And then of course, as anyone who’s seen the great Apollo 11 documentary or other similar movies back then, of course, getting to space, the moon was something that only governments did. And now that’s a totally different story. If you could give us a little bit of a history lesson, when did private companies , I mean, they’ve always had a role right, as, as contractors and suppliers to the government, but when did they start taking the lead in certain areas? What were some of the early milestones with respect to privatization and what do you expect to see over the next decade? So in other words, past present future, how did we get to now and where do you think we’re going? Tony Gannon: 3:21 Richard, that’s a very comprehensive and that very smart question. I’ll do my best to make my response and the way that I see it personally, the Space Shuttle program, of course, which followed shortly after the Saturn V or the moon program was very, very costly. According to my memory, it was something in the region of $500 million dollars to send a space shuttle into space. And that does not include a payload and one could easily have a payload in the cargo bay that costs three quarters of a million dollars, be a satellite, be it , some observation component are indeed products of the international space station. And so the federal government and close contact with NASA decided we need to introduce commercial industry to this program because we are heading up a federal program that is going to get costlier and costlier, and it doesn’t seem to have any end. And so in the instance is perhaps of recognizing one of diminishing public participation in the program and we’ve been to the moon . And so people felt well, it’s all done now, but no, there was a commercial element and it could turn into very productive industry, the powers that be at the time. And I must say with great reluctance of many people in the industry, they decided they would commercialize the space industry. And so NASA essentially sent out RFPs requests for proposals, from companies that have been developing the thought along the same lines let us build design rockets that meet NASA specifications, but it’d be our rockets . So, SpaceX would own the rocket. They would send eventually astronauts into the space. They would communicate with the space station. They will do all of this kind of work in space, but they were not just the only one. And so that commercial thought, which met with so much resistance at the early stage really was very farsighted. It was the true answer to commercial space that we take to federal element out of it let them provide some funding, but we let the industry be driving the industry. And that was the commercialization of space exploration. Richard Miles : 5:17 And that is really, I think what’s captured the imagination of a lot of people, particularly in the last few years, as we see the fruits of that investment, right? That incredible videos of the SpaceX rockets, landing on platforms over the ocean and stuff like that. I think everyone, all of a sudden realize like, wow, this isn’t just small stuff. This is actually the major components of all the stages, right. Of getting liftoff. And then actually once you’re in space. What’s clear though, is this is probably not going to ever be just a private thing, right? Or is it, is there a potential where let’s say 20 years from now, or even 10 years from now, is there going to be an equivalent of United Airlines, American airlines saying, okay, you want to take a trip up to space. Good. Here, go online, buy your ticket, or is it always going to be something to do with a government mission, government funding? What would you say? Tony Gannon: 6:04 It’s going to be a mixture. It’s funny. You should say that, that the thought has crossed my mind. As you were mentioning about it being massive prior to our federally driven program, then you have the introduction of all of those commercial space companies. And we always mentioned SpaceX first, pretty obvious reasons, but it can be said not as mission itself changed . And now they’re being challenged with, you might say the expiration of distance space. And so the recent launch we had from Cape Canaveral and SpaceX, rocket owned by Elon Musk and company has on board, a NASA Mars Explorer with little helicopter on board , which is a NASA entity. But here we have privately owned spacecraft, launching a mission to Mars on behalf of NASA. I mean that in itself, is amazing. It’s so challenging, but it’s also so exciting. I had the pleasure. I was watching. I won’t mention a local TV station some weeks ago, but I saw the chief scientist who had worked on the helicopter on the Mars mission. And she was discussing how for the first time ever a craft, be it , a drone will be launched from a Lander on planet Mars and explore sections of Mars and take videos and send it back via satellite back to Earth. It’ll probably take about 8 to 10 minutes for that signals to get back to planet Earth. But I mean , that is the ultimate. Here we are. And exploring in a drone planets , Mars gone into all of us caves and caverns the turning data. All the trucks will pick up for the first time, which something I have thought a long time ago, listen to the sound of Mars, the sound of the wind. What is it like? And there are very, very strong winds on planet Mars. So that element is really exciting. I think the commercial elements would have probably overtake what NASA’s mission is able to say. Bernie singularly focused on getting to Mars so we can have the near future. Just like you said, we don’t have SpaceX astronauts. We will have Blue Origin astronauts, Virgin Galactic, or a Virgin astronauts and a whole range of companies. Boeing. Of course, I shouldn’t forget with the Starliner. So we might have 10 different astronaut core for the moment. It appears to training through Houston and the NASA programs to meet those NASA standards. But who can say that in the future in 10 years time, that astronauts might not be trained in New York City and Washington DC , or even in Florida where the lanches take place from. So it is and you drew a great comparison with the airlines. We had the hedge hopping days of the 1910s and 1920s people trying and risky maneuvers in their flying machines. And then we moved on to commercial enterprise driven by that great challenge as guests of Lindbergh flying the Atlantic. And now we have in the future prospect of having a choice of companies who will fly us perhaps to the moon around the moon for a honeymoon, which would be ideal, or taking design for the locations such as Mars. So we live in a very challenging, but it isn’t really exciting to think of such deeds what happens possibly within our lifetime . Richard Miles : 9:07 Tony, you said something earlier that I think you put your finger right on it in terms of NASA has to focus on one goal. And it strikes me that probably one of the best things about privatization, at least of the participation in private companies is they have a lot more room to be creative, right? Where the government and I spent almost all my career in government. So I know this well, you identify your one big goal and that’s where all the resources go. That’s where all the thought and the planning go . And a lot of the smaller stuff, it’s like, well, that’s a distraction, but that’s kind of the whole point of the market, right? Is you have a little company and they say, Hey, wouldn’t it be great to make a drone fly on Mars or some sort of other thing that they know would probably do well in a space environment and is necessary in a space environment . And they devote all their efforts, creating that little thing in a way that the government would probably just say yeah, we don’t have time to do that sort of stuff. Tony Gannon: 9:54 You’re so right Richard I’m not sure what government agency that you worked with. In a different life, I worked for a government agency in Ireland following college, and every document that I saw or read had to be signed about 10 times. And this was in the business development area, this was new technologies. I would like to mention if I may. And I think we play a fairly big role. I’m very honored in Space Florida, to be involved with a section of the community that comes up with this innovation. And I’ll give you the examples Space Florida. When we were initiated 12, 13 years ago by our then Governor Bush, Jeb Bush in a very insightful manner, combining three existing agencies to one. So we’re like to go to point, if you want to go to Florida, if you want to catch us up, involve commercially or federally in the aerospace program. And so what happened was we were dealing with the big guys, the Boeing, the Lockheed Martins, Harris corporation, now L3 Harris, Northrop Grumman, NASA of course, SpaceX, Blue Origin, the entire gambit of major companies. But I often felt in my heart and I spoke to our president Frank DiBello one day. And I said, no, we need to take care of the little guys too. Those young companies, which are formulated by very smart young entrepreneurs who come out of some of the colleges, like University of Florida, UCF, Embry Riddle, and a whole host all our Florida universities and indeed throughout the United States and to have great ideas, but how do they get those ideas to fruition that can assist in this great aerospace adventure that we’re sitting on the threshold of? And so I thought one thing that all need and they all have in common is they need money. They need lots of money and we need to place our thrust in their enthusiasm and their determination to succeed. Many would fail, but let’s give them a chance. And so about six or seven years ago, I met with a group, forgive me for jumping into this too quickly. I apologize on that. I said, how can I do this? I said, I need a team of investors who have the openness to say, we can’t guarantee you anything, Tony, but we listened to these young entrepreneurs and we’ll make our decisions that we, you know, and so we formed this partnership with the Florida venture forum space of Florida. And our capacity while we could do was put up a prize money. And we determined that that prize money will be a hundred thousand dollars per capital accelerator. And that we would undertake two of those accelerators per year. So with an investment of $200,000 over the past six years, we’re at about $1.3 million investment into the companies. In other words, if you Richard had a company called ABC technologies and you won the accelerator today with Space Florida, chances are, you would receive an award of about $40,000 in second place. It’s 30 and 20 and so forth. And so you have this exposure to the investors who are sitting around watching you. I’m not here to forward. It’s been live now where on a webinar. And their listening to you and their thinking this young man or this young company, I was looking for $5 million. That’s an extraordinary amount of money. I want to see their technology and it’s the technology that will attract the investment and the investors. And I can tell you, this is an ROI that I can actually provide full details up to date. Over six years, over $460 million has been invested in those Florida companies during the last six years. With an investment of less than 1.5 million, this is what we can show. And this is fantastic. And yet when it’s judged by California standards, it may seem quite small. I’d love to hear California investors say, you know what, I threw $50 million in here. I took $40 million in there. Hey, Darn-it, I lost it all but I threw $200 million into Amazon. And the sun is shining, the fact that the investors can talk in those terms. I mean, obviously I’m not in the same payroll as them , but is that investing community is really driving commercialization, entrepreneurship. And I think of great assistance to where I use. So I’ll get off my bandwagon now and pass it back to you , Richard. Richard Miles : 13:50 You know, at the Cade Museum, we also have a similar prize Cade Prize that we’re not focused necessarily on a particular sector. Like you are on space, but basically the same stage, very early seed stage companies. And you’re exactly right. I think that’s been a game changer, particularly in a state like Florida, where the number of ideas coming out of universities is huge, but the capital to fund those ideas is relatively tiny. And then the management talent to take on the next level is also somewhat thin . So I think what you’re doing is exactly right. Can you give some examples of maybe some companies that have come out of the Florida venture forum, the space related companies that are working on current technologies related to space. Tony Gannon: 14:27 I should know Richard, I have no notes in front of me. So I’d go from my poor memory. I could say our last aerospace adventure, which was only in May and June this year, we had something in the region of 89 or 90 applications and actually the zero charge to apply. So we had that number 20 were selected to present the one success story that I’m particularly fond of is Censys Technologies who are located at the Microflex in Embry Riddle. And essentially they’re working on drones, drone technology, and they have drones that test at the airport. There it’s a wonderful location for them, but their CEO call me just about three weeks ago and said, Tony, I want to tell you a little story. Do you remember, we appeared in your venture forum collaboration, and we got second place. We’d love to have been first, but we got second. But more importantly, we got an investor interested in our company and within about a month, following their appearance in a webinar, they had investors of over $2 million. And when I read the press release that he sent to me and he copied our president Frank DiBello. I said, well , you’ve just made, not just my day, but my week and my month, because you have done exactly what we wanted to do for you. And I’ve often said, and that might sound like a cliche, but what we’re trying to do in Space Florida is help those companies, those smaller companies in that supply chain that it’s so competitive to be in. But think of the joy, the fact that the company down with maybe 8 to 10 employees, they get this enormous pint of blood in the arm said , you know what? We’d like, what you do. We like your management team. And we believe in your technology. Here’s $2 million to be successful. That to me is phenomenal. I’d also If I meant mention not a company that participated in the Florida venture forum , but with whom Space Florida has had a very strong relationship with. And perhaps, you know, they call them Made in Space. They were the company who first installed 3D printer onboard the International Space Station several years ago. And coincidentally through my Florida Israel Innovation Partnership, I suggested to their management, you know what? You guys have got great industry going on. However, you need to build a manufacturer in space. And perhaps if you were to partner with another innovative 3D company, you might come up with some smart ideas you apply for the grant. And if our judges deemed that you’re worthy, you might pick up 250, $300,000 dollars as an award to explore can you do this in space. They did. And they did successfully twice, which means they have achieved what $500,000. And now they are starting a program of manufacturing in space. So what was initially seen as being a gimmick, that they can build a little plastic container in space. Hey, how cool is that? Manufacture in space, but how about manufacturing for the purposes of generating revenue and building a company, expanding a company portfolio, that’s really something else. And I’m very proud of what they have done, but it’s not just me. It’s been whole team or business development team led by Howard and Frank our two senior executives and I’ve been really happy to be a small part of that success story. Richard Miles : 17:36 So not only am I familiar with Made in Space, but Aaron Kemmer, their founder is going to be also one of the interviews on this space series. Tony Gannon: 17:43 But do please tell Aaron that I said hello. Richard Miles : 17:45 I will, well lets go back to what you said about the partnership with Israel, which I think is Very exciting. We’re chatting a little bit earlier about the book startup nation, which came out probably 10 years ago. So we were chronicling Israel’s rise from being this quasi agrarian, semi social state. And then in the early nineties that creativity and innovation explode and the startup companies and so on. And it gives a whole bunch of different reasons for that. But I’d really like to hear what the Florida Israel Innovation Partnership looks like. What does it consist of and what sort of results have you seen from that so far? Tony Gannon: 18:17 Thank you again Richard for allowing me to speak on this particular program. This is a program that’s extremely close to my heart. I tell you what happened. So about eight years ago, our president Frank DiBello called me into his office and said, Tony, I’d like you to do something it’s kind of unusual. I’d like you to write a speech for me. And I know Frank has a great rec on tear . He also writes extremely well. I’m very experienced. I said, Frank, do you think I can justify I’ll do something for you ? He said, I just think you might come up with a different angle. And that was really probably from my research background , but also because I had taken a personal interest in the flight of Space Shuttle Columbia , on which as you know, amongst others, there was the very first Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, and Ilan of course like the other astronauts perished, but I’ve been very interested in this story and success. Frank’s speech was to be presented to about 200 Israeli Jewish congregation in the Orlando area. So very supportive of Israel, but very supportive as you say, the startup nation theme. So I wrote a speech for Frank and I got some words through various interpretations in Hebrew. And essentially I wrote about Ilan Ramon about his success and what he dreamed and how important was to explore space in very simple words, but also the fact that several personal items that Ilan had onboard had survived that dreadful crash back down to where , including parts of his personal notebook and which he wrote in. And I kind of paraphrasing here and now he said today, I feel I’m a real man in space because I working here in space, I’m happy to return. And it was a very moving piece that I included in Frank’s speech to this Israeli congregation. Well, apparently it was very well received. And within two weeks of that, Frank came to me and said, we’re taking this a step four , I want you to go to Israel. I want you to come to Israel with me because I have this program, which has been generated to Israeli support and indeed through our governor, and we want to allocate $2 million per annum for a joint partnership, 1 million from Israel, 1 million from Florida, so that we can collaborate in aerospace, R and D two companies working together and typically award would be expected to be between 200 to $300,000 each. So it was really exciting. So I go to Israel and I’m sitting, looking at young Israeli men and women, and I’m absolutely not dealt with the technology out . And next to me alongside our president was Mr. John Carlos is like the number two guy in Lockheed Martin. So this guy is way above my pay scale, but we on really well. And he too could see something was happening. The very first company that walked in the door was a young man called Dr. Oren Milstein, who had graduated his PhD in California. And he’s the CEO and cofounder of a company called StemRad from Israel. And Steve and his partners had come up with a very, very instinct form of radiation protection, which would be utilized in a military situation. And he wasn’t sure where to go with it. And so we were looking at it and I said to John, I kind of kicked him on the back of his leg. I said, this could be of great interest to Lockheed Martin in the future radiation protection for astronauts. Why not use that as perhaps in a suit, one of the , be instinct to compare that to what the current radiation protect is like and then how it might improve. If you could incorporate the StemRad technology, it was successful. It was enormously successful. Lockheed Martin worked really hard, very closely with NASA in conjunction with this small company in Tel Aviv. Could they also have offices up in Haifa and they now Lockheed Martin are going to use that technology. And it’s been sent into space I’ve tested and proven to be superior to the current radiation detection, kind of protecting the brain human brain human body, the vital organs, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the Capitec, those earliest of a human it’s face. There’s no, man. That was my first introduction to Israeli technology. And never, since I continue to be wowed by what I’ve seen and heard and been a part of. So we’ve now had our seven calls for proposals, typically three to four winners per year. And I’m happy to announce that in late October, I believe from memory it’s the 22nd of October, we have the eight rounds for projects and we’ve had winners from all over the state of Florida from Miami to Tampa to Gainesville. I think the winner from Gainesville is called Micro gRx affiliated with the Innovation Center at the University of Florida. And Dr. Siobhan Malany I’m really trying to follow this in the back of my head is the CEO and Co founder . She did a wonderful job of her investigations into actually something that I can take care a great deal about is the aging process amongst us humans. You know , how do we detect, how do we take it up? How do we improve? How do we slow it down and utilizing space as a research vehicle? So they’re just some of those windows from that program, but it has been very successful. And Richard, I apologize for talking so long. Other countries are watching it and they’re saying, Tony, this is great for Israel and wonderful and congratulations. But what about me? And so in this period of time, both my presidents trying to battle, I know we’ve had certain amount of very friendly and jovial pressure from other countries recently, about six months ago at the OneWeb Satellites Facility, we signed an MOU with the Republic of France and a banking institution called BPI France to have a similar style program, which I am looking forward to seeing, being initiated in the spring of 21. Spain is chasing us for an MOU. Brazil has already signed an MOU in March just before we went under that curfew of Covid. Our president had signed down in Miami with the president of Brazil. And as I mentioned, Spain, but also Japan and certainly not least United Kingdom absolutely would love the idea to collaborate with us. And we are open to working with all of them. Richard Miles : 24:11 That’s amazing, Tony, it’s all from one great speech that you wrote. So I got to say, when the Cade Museum gets big enough, we’re going to hire you as a speech writer . That’s this phenomenal results to get that sort of program going. And it’s really a reflection right of again, it’s not only governments and it’s not just US companies now. It’s this diversification of talent, but also risks . So that by pulling in companies from these different countries, whether it’s Israel or Brazil or Spain, or the UK, you really are building this international supply chain of various thing . The market’s doing that. And you’re , it’s not just governments doing that. So I think that’s phenomenal because that’s really what will make a lot of this sustainable. Tony Gannon: 24:48 Yeah and Richard just like to briefly add. You reminded me in our last etcetera event in May, the winner was not from Florida, but it was a UK company that I had met two years ago in London. And I said to him , Archangel Lightworks sounds like communications company. Think about Florida. Don’t forget about it. Sure enough. He applied and they have to indicate yes, if we, win we are considering opening up a facility in Florida, and now I’ve learned in the past few days that they are opening up, but they won the competition from United Kingdom, excellent company, great management team . They’re now in negotiations with investors from fraud, that when they come here, they get a major boost. Can I just mention something? And it’s on a personal nature sometimes when it’s really personal, it drives you even farther . When I was on the Israel on that first visit and I finished the first five days when we were returning home, it happened to be the anniversary of the death of the Ilan Ramon and entire Space Shuttle crew. And I remembered that it was scheduled to come back Columbia, at 9:00 AM in the morning, which would have been 3:00 PM in Israel. And I just totally out of the blue. And it was almost like divine inspiration or something. I walked down to the beach, took off my shoes, socks and put my feet in the water. And I just said a prayer for the crew for particularly thinking about Ilan Ramon that evening, I got a call totally out of the blue from this lady. Her name was Rona Ramon . It was his widow. She called me out of the blue. She said, I heard as a crazy Irish UK guy working on this Israel program. I’d love to meet you. And we met the following day for lunch. It was almost like what’s going on here. Something that sticks, but this program is going to be very successful, I can feel it in my heart. Richard Miles : 26:30 That is a great and very touching story. Although I got to ask Tony, when are the Irish going to get involved? Come on, Tony Gannon: 26:36 You are reading my mind , Uh , in Ireland , uh , as we have enterprise, Florida, here who do a wonderful job and the collaborate with so many around the country and did all the development agencies some weeks ago, I contacted enterprise Ireland. And ironically, when I sent an email to Dublin Capitol City, my email was deflected to Texas, to Austin, Texas. When I discovered enterprise Ireland have several representatives. And in the past three to four weeks, I’ve been in discussions with one of them. Now I mentioned his name, Steven Kell . And today we had a discussion and he’s asked me to present to a group of Irish aerospace companies in October, probably about 11 to 12. I don’t have a calendar in front of me. And he essentially wants me to talk about Florida and the opportunities for our aerospace companies. And they would be early stage, probably looking for investments anywhere from one to five million, it would be very competitive for them. But if there are not in front of investors, then they’ll never gain. So it’s only when to go up front and you say, okay, I’ll give it a shot. I’ll give it everything. And I’m hoping that in the future, yeah , something will come up. That was a nice pun there Richard. Richard Miles : 27:41 I’ve gotta put you on warning here, Tony, we’re going to hold you personally accountable. If the Irish are not in the game and somebody has gotta be blamed here. So, Tony Gannon: 27:48 Hopefully we’ll have Guinness beer and Jameson Irish whiskey, also on board, a future space shuttle mission would probably help us. And that’s better than an aspirin or something of that nature in the long term , but in mild moderation. Richard Miles : 28:01 I’m friends with one of the heirs of the Guinness family. And so we’ll try to make sure that that’s doable. Tony, last question, let’s get visionary for a moment here. Where do you think we’re going to be say 10 years from now in 2030 with regards to space exploration in general. And then as a sub question of that, where do you think we’re going to be in terms of public private partnerships or the commercial part of space? So dream big here and assume that everything goes well in the next 10 years, where do you think that might put us? Tony Gannon: 28:28 That’s like a big hundred thousand dollar question or a hundred million dollar question I tell you what I’d love to see in the more short term is that it amazes me still that thinking back to the sixties, the 1970s, that if one were to fly from New York or Washington DC to London, it’s an overnight trip of seven to eight hours. And here we are in the 2000 and twenties and it’s marginally shorter. It’s still five to six hours of a flight supersonic jets. I would love to see them operate. And I think perhaps Virgin Atlantic leading their efforts in their suborbital flights might be a pathway where we will see a group of airlines who all have these supersonic jets that might fly us from say, New York or Washington, DC to Canberra in Australia in four hours. That to me would be an incredible achievement. It would be under the general mantle of aerospace, but the technology that might be used in communications to enable that to happen, I think would be phenomenally of great benefit to mankind here on earth. Agriculture concerns me deeply. One all was assumes that when you come from a nation like Ireland , where it rains pretty much every day, but not all day, that water is never an issue and so I was saddened over the last couple of years to read that it is the pollution of water and the destruction on our agricultural processes vote in Florida. And also in Europe start accelerating at an alarming rate. I would like to see the space program take a bigger lead. And I think that it’s coming up priority ever so slowly and to use this of drone technology and water purification system in identifying those areas of our planet on our state in particular, where the pollution exists and how do we stop that pollution. And undoubtedly University of Florida play a major lead in our state and indeed the entire country, the reputation of the University of Florida is beyond par. Likewise, when our Everglades Foundation in South Florida, as we’re protecting that very fragile environment, to me, that’s critically important. So I would say agriculture production of food, increasing the yields, watching our atmosphere, our environment, using technology to improve the information we have. And how would you say rectify the bad things that are happening on our planet? I think that’s very, very critical if I could make a crazy wish for the future. Richard, I’d say something that always struck my mind. I think two things in particular, I think the ability to fly, I think there was some crazy guy flying over LA recently. It was about a couple of hundred feet away from United Airlines. That’s not the kind of thing I’m thinking of something responsible whereby one could fly on short trips. I’ve given altitudes from point A to point B, which our own little backpack. I think that would be phenomenal. I’d love to see that. Just think of the doors would open up to you going down for a beer, are you allow it have one. Maybe one? Richard Miles : 31:22 I would love that too, but you made a very interesting and important point. Tony is that a lot of the excitement around space when people read about space exploration and go, great, we’re going to go back to the moon. We’re going to go to Mars. A lot of the utilities actually going to be focused back on here on earth. It will improve our ability to observe the Earth much more accurately and make improvements to technologies here based on what we have in space. Like, as you said, the climate agriculture energy, this sort of thing’s important derivatives of maybe the aspirational goal of making it tomorrow . But nevertheless, we should be producing downstream effects that we can use almost right away here. Tony Gannon: 32:00 And Richard, I would just sort of add, and it might be sounding a little comic to things in the far distant future. We should bear in mind. One of them, I would love the ability to teleport. There is a University of private in Switzerland as working out so far and not getting there. They’re moving objects about one centimeter, but the ability to teleport from point A to point B be at 5,000 or 500,000 miles, 50 million miles. That to me, would be absolutely phenomenal, I would say this is I’m quoting the words of our good friend from Cambridge, Dr. Stephen Hawking, whom I met actually about 14, 15 years ago. We didn’t have a discussion, but a question I raised to his group was tell us about aliens. Would you like to meet aliens? His answer was very surprising he said I don’t think we really want to meet aliens, but it’s probably gone beyond that now, because those signals are going off into space for the past 100 years. Because I think in the long term, the aliens would be so far ahead of us that they would see us simply as protein, which is an alarming thought. Richard Miles : 33:06 So Tony , you may have just caused me to lose a bet with my son. We’ve been arguing for at least 10 years about whether teleporting is possible or not. So I don’t think I’m going to let him listen to this podcast or else you don’t want to collect on his bet. And now I’m going to hold you accountable for three things, Irish astronauts, jet packs, and teleporting. And so when we do our follow up in 2030 podcasts, we’ll see if you were right on any of those. Tony, thank you very much for joining me today on Radio. Cade it’s been a great fun discussion, and I look forward to having you back on the show at some point. Tony Gannon: 33:36 Richard, thank you very much. The honor was all mine. Thank you so much and good luck to the great work that you do . Richard Miles : 33:41 Thank you very much Outro: 33:41 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Launch into Radio Cade’s Space Pod and step inside the future of humanity’s journey into deep space. Our first episode features Mark Sirangelo, who was involved with more than 350 space missions at Sierra Nevada and is the visionary NASA tapped to lead its Moon to Mars Mission Directorate. Mark discusses not just the how of the space exploration renaissance, but the why. Although we need the excitement of discovery to motivate us, much of the current work on space will improve life on earth soon. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:39 Astronauts landed on the moon 50 years ago, and we have never stopped looking toward the stars, imagining what the future holds far beyond earth. Launching the Radio Cade’s Space Pod, and step inside the future of humanity’s journey to deep space, meet the innovators and visionaries who are charting a bold new course to the moon, then to Mars and beyond. Discover the revolutionary technology that will get us there and see how it’s already transformed life here on earth. Today. I’m speaking with Mark Sirangelo, who is involved with more than 350 space missions at Sierra Nevada, and is the visionary NASA tapped to lead its moon to Mars mission directorate. Hear Mark on this first episode of our Radio Cade Space Pod, because we’re headed back to the moon and this time we plan to stay. Mark , welcome to Radio Cade. Mark Sirangelo: 1:25 Hi Richard, Good to be here. I’m glad to be able to speak with you on the topic of space and its feature . Richard Miles: 1:30 So Mark, as you know, this is part of a bigger series that we’re doing on space exploration in which we’re going to talk, not just about the how of getting on the moon and beyond, but the why . And perhaps few people are better positioned to talk about both the how and the why than you. So to give listeners an idea of what you bring to the table, why don’t you start with a brief summary of your career, including the non-space parts, which I found fascinating. So what made Mark Sirangelo? Mark Sirangelo: 1:56 Thanks Richard, I’m happy to give a little background. I think one of the things I like to talk about when I speak to groups or students is the fact that I didn’t have a traditional path to space. I didn’t grow up as a space engineers, spend 30 years doing it and wound up coming out the back end. Many of the people today are looking at their lives and careers and deciding what they want to do. My background, although I have a long history in flying, I was flying as a teenager and an active pilot ever since. And the love of space and aviation came from many generations of my family who’ve been involved with that. I didn’t actually start in the space industry. I started as a nature photographer. I’d spend time traveling the world as a mediocre photographer, but when that was good enough to get a lot of work and I think I got more work than most people because I could fly myself around and that was making me cheaper than most other photographers, but I saw a lot of imaging and I also got to see a lot of different cultures and people. And that really started me off on a understanding of the world, understanding of the world we live in and the people in parts of the world that really mattered to how we look at ourselves in many ways. One of the very earliest pitchers out in the space industry that helped change the world was the Apollo eight picture called Earthrise. When the earth was first seen by human, as they came around the backside of the moon. And many people think that moment where you saw the earth hanging, there was the start of what’s. Now the ecological movement, the idea of connecting the world to the fact that we live in it and it’s a very precious place. And although that was just the photograph that was done on Christmas Eve and that photograph in many ways on the painting in millions of people’s rooms and making people understand the world we live in. So the connection is really interesting. I have a interesting background, perhaps I was in the military for awhile . I started up two different companies that were not directly related to the space industry. One was in the events and entertainment business, and another was in computer technology. I also continued to do artistic work and helping to produce Broadway shows and theatrical shows, but in a short version in the beginning of this century, around 2000 number of people, including myself, started looking at the space industry. And ironically enough, I was working in a business that used the NASA technology, or I was able to use a NASA technology to make a difference in the healthcare world and others and NASA recognized that and recognized my work in that area and invited me to come out to their annual event to receive an award. And it was at that event that I started wandering the space industry and the trade show, unbeknownst to me, several other, the key players in the new wave space were also starting up at that particular time. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson and Paul Allen and others. And collectively, we came at this industry and started, what’s now known as the commercial space flight industry of which there have been well over a hundred companies now who have tried to rethink the space industry in a different way. I was part of that becoming the CEO of a company called Space Dev in the early two thousands, and continuing on for the next couple of decades and had an amazing space career. And lots of ups and downs have been on hundreds of space missions, or my company has been, and people have worked with me. We’ve been to seven planets with something that we’ve built. I got to stand on the mountains in Colorado where I live and watch Mars as something that we had built was about to land on Mars and been involved in going to as close to the sun as possible on a mission. And then on the new horizons mission to Pluto. So for the kid that came out of nowhere with no particular background, it’s been a fascinating journey. Richard Miles: 5:33 So Mark, I got to say probably in the Venn diagram of successful Broadway producers and also part of missions to Mars to space, there’s probably only one person right? Mark Sirangelo: 5:43 There probably is and to take that little bit more seriously, I actually give a talk where I compare Broadway to space, which is probably not something anybody does, but I go through 10 key things in Broadway, i n t he theater business and t he space business. And I show how t hey’re a lot more alike than people realize the passion that exists in theater business is very similar to the passion that exists in space business. People do it because they love it. When you start a show at eight o’clock, the curtain goes up, it’s not dissimilar t o pushing a button on a rocket launch. You don’t get to return it. And there are a lot of connections that I find just playful, but also sort of fun. People have passions in many different ways. Richard Miles: 6:21 I’ll bet. I mean, with all those moving parts, and like you said, on a very tight timeline that, that has to be executed You don’t really get a do over or at least not right away. Mark Sirangelo: 6:29 We have a lot of professionals and artisans that are involved. I actually think of space as art because a large part of what we do in space, particularly in the commercial space industry has never been done. It has to be imagined. It has to be created. It has to be drawn in many ways, literally sometimes drawn and imagined in terms of what it might look like. And that’s a very artistic activity, which people don’t always attribute to the space industry. Richard Miles: 6:52 Mark, before we move on to the future, let’s just spend a little bit of time talking about where we are right now from listeners who don’t necessarily follow the ins and outs and capabilities. They might see an occasional YouTube clip or something like that. What are commercial private efforts in government capable of doing right now, or at least in the next few months? And then let’s talk about what we might expect in the next 10 years. Mark Sirangelo: 7:14 Sure. I think this is, I would say a golden age in many ways of the space industry. There is a whole lot of change going on right now. And if you go back before the new year, 2000 virtually all the space business was conducted by governments, run by NASA, as we know, or the defense department or around the world by governments. Since then there have been hundreds of companies, commercial companies that have taken on many of those parts of it. So for example, recently the astronauts who went to the space station or brought up on a commercially designed commercially built and commercially launched space vehicle built by space X under a program run by NASA called the commercial Crew Program. That program did not make NASA build anything. NASA became, the manager became the overseer, became the certifier, the space X did all the work to make that happen. And I think what we’re seeing more and more of the satellites that drive our days, the research that’s going on in space is now in some ways, a public private partnership in some ways, completely commercial. And the idea that commercial companies would be building their own spaceships as my former company did and space X and others. It was not really conceivable when I first started building a replacement for the space shuttle, people laughed at me saying, how could you possibly do that with 40 people in a garage in San Diego when there are 18,000 people working on the space shuttle program, but we’ve seen it is possible to do that. And I think there’s a lot of people look at their lives and their careers, the idea of looking at something that seems impossible and making it possible is one of the greatest thrills that you could do in your life I think. Richard Miles: 8:49 So we’re now at the point where it’s fairly routine, certainly the launch rockets into space to carry passenger into space, to and from the space station, let’s take head on to space skeptics who say like, well, great it was wonderful to have a space program in the middle or the apex of the cold war where we definitely wanted to prove U.S. superiority. Oh , it’s in space, but also technologically speaking, militarily speaking, just so you know, when president Kennedy committed the United States go to the moon. I mean, that was part of that national effort. And now you have some people say, well, okay, great, cold war is over. What do we really get out of going to space setting aside, of course, the very powerful, romantic ideas of exploration, which has always motivated humans. So you can’t discount that or disregard that, but from a sort of practical, hard nose standpoint, what justifies the money and the time, both by commercial interests in governments into essentially this space Renaissance. Mark Sirangelo: 9:41 And I think with one of the most interesting and oftentimes misunderstood parts of the space industry and NASA for all its value and all the people who respect it really doesn’t get as much credit as I think they should get for the work that’s been done in space. And people often think of spaces, the big rockets and the satellites and the moon landing and the Mars landings that we’re about to see the next Mars Rover that’s kind of my end called perseverance or Percy for short, but people don’t really see that in their day to day lives. How much NASA has impacted everything we do. I think I would cause a national craze if I just say, if we told everybody that they no longer could use Google maps or Apple maps, because space is shutting off GPS. Think about just that one thing, how much that has changed the way we live, the way we drive , how much time we’re not spending in traffic anymore and how that contributes to a better environment, because we’re not wasting gasoline and creating carbon dioxide. And that one thing alone is a derivative of the space program, but there are thousands of examples, many of which are in your daily lives and your daily house in your life, in your personal life and your health, but also in your fun life and the things that we do every day. And to me, that’s one of the best examples of why we go to space . Space is certainly about exploration. And many of us who’ve done it feel that spark or that passion, if you will, going back to the theater comment I made, but it’s also a pallet of innovation. It’s a pallet of understanding what tomorrow could be. And it drives the change that we see in our society. Unlike anything else, it’s not about the hardware. It’s about all the medical things that we get. It’s about all the things that happened in our day to day lives, all the things that exist in our homes and what we do is we take what’s in space and we bring it back and we drive it into our societies. In fact, NASA’s chartering, which is different than virtually any other part of the U.S. government. It is chartered by its own definition to take everything it does and send it back to the American people in some way, shape or form. And it has done that marvelously in my view, it has nothing to do directly with necessarily landing on the moon. It’s all the things we’ve learned along the way that makes your life better in my life better. And if we can talk maybe a little bit about some examples of that. I think, Richard Miles: 11:57 Yeah I was just about to ask, give me some concrete examples of what we have already learned or an expect to learn soon. So the average person go, Oh, I get it. Like GPS is a perfect example of just as a personal side. I mean, we both were in desert storm and I remember the day that the first tank platoon leader got a GPS and it just seemed like this incredible magic, we didn’t even understand how it worked , but you could immediately grasp the utility of it. And it was quite something. And as you said, people take that for granted now, but it was quite new, Mark Sirangelo: 12:26 And we live in such a different time. So let’s bring it to where we are today. How many packages do we now all get delivered to our homes? That’s all driven by root systems, which are driven by GPS. And the fact that my FedEx package from Amazon shows up here on time is in part because of the space industry and the ability to do it. Well , let’s be even more personal. I like talking about the things that we all feel all the time. For example, the technology behind the invisible braces, that many of the young children and even adults now have used, came out of the space program. If you go to the dentist and we all have, and we get this device put in our mouth that keeps our mouth clean and vacuums and wet. The purification that came out of that was NASA technology, heart rate monitors, which have become important from a physical device per physical activity, but also in the medical world, particularly in the area of virus and the amount of oxygen and how your heart’s working is our devices that came out of NASA. For those that live a little bit in science fiction, we now have ingestible thermometers looks like a vitamin that you swallow , and it creates an environment where then doctors can tell what’s going on inside your body, that’s a NASA technology. I have friends who have children who are hard of hearing cochlear implants started in a NASA world. Those people who’ve ever used a thermometer in the ear, the infrared system for that was used to detect planets. It came from a NASA technology to look at long distance, to look at planets that are outside of our solar system, but even more fun and more practically skin cream file systems inside skin cream that allow for the moisture to stay in your face was a NASA technology, but even more important stuff. One of the things that happens when you go to space, as you lose your bone mass, and you could lose up to five to 10% of your bone mass for being in space. It’s a very similar thing to what happens when people age and they start losing their bone mass, osteoporosis it’s called. The treatments for that, how that might be able to work were developed on space station for long distance space explorations, but even more fun things increased dry technology, freeze dried foods for example, was something that things that famously came out of the Apollo program. But the idea of how to do dehydration is really important by living in Colorado, everybody’s outside all the time. The water filtration bottles that we use was a NASA technology, the filtration system that was inside or device that finds us if we get lost, a lot of people carry devices, whether or not they’re on the water in the mountains that you can press an emergency signal gets sent. So stuff like that, it’s really pretty interesting to me and people don’t think of reading the same way that NASA is that a space program, even those of us who eat meat. Inspections of chicken are now done using something called a hyperspectral thermometer and a visual device, which scans for bacteria and salmonella and things. That was actually a space program device. And it’s keeping thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people safe from food poisoning. So those kinds of things, and there are many more examples that I just love to talk about, but it’s really pretty fascinating. I have an artificial limb made NASA technology is now driving into artificial limbs as well as prosthesis’. So the ability to move a prosthesis using your brain, the ability to make it feel more comfortable came out of NASA. The toughness of the artificial lens that are being put into people those, the technology that can drive by the NASA. So I know I’m Johnny on here, but you see this kind of thing and people don’t live their lives . They don’t realize how much NASA and touches your lives every day. Speaking to touching, if you have any faucets in your home that have polished brass finishes or any polished metal finishes, that was a NASA technology. So when you’re touching something that clean your hands, you’re actually touching the space program every day. So it’s a fun thing to do. And NASA has a lot of problems that they have to solve. How do we feed people in space? For example, since they’re in zero or limited gravity water, doesn’t go down into roots. We’ve had to figure that out. And that’s turned into systems that allow people to grow food in their homes in a very limited environment, which these days is even more important, LED light bulbs in your home. The air purifiers that we use in our home now all derived out of NASA work. If you’re sleeping on a Tempurpedic mattress or anything that has temper foam in it, that was a foam that was developed in the NASA world. Things like that you start thinking about, and those are very, very personal things, but even looking into the future and I know we want to talk a little bit about tomorrow. The AI, the artificial intelligence that’s going into autonomous vehicles was used initially to drive the rovers around on Mars. And that same technology is now coming down. And in my view, in many people’s view in five or ten years, we’re going to see many autonomous vehicles out on the road. And it’s not that NASA is building those vehicles, but if you have to drive Rover a hundred million miles away on another planet and that’s a onetime vehicle, or you can’t fix it, you can’t go up and do anything about it. That autonomy, that intelligence behind doing that is quite important and NASA’s taking that and it’s now finding its way into vehicles and the devices that are in our world. Richard Miles: 17:42 Let’s talk about a few things that really continue to catch the popular imagination. One is the , the whole idea of a moon base. We see it in movies. I mean, people think about a moon base. It seems very much science fictiony. And then of course, a mission to Mars or man mission to Mars. And by movies, I mean more than just two or three people staying for a couple of days, but actually similar to international space station or a Antarctica research station where you’ve got a permanent group more than just a couple of people staying there for extended periods of time. What would it take to get to that? And then again, the question is what would a research station do on the moon? Would most of that research be focused on creating more benefits? Like the ones you listed doing research that would help us understand ourselves on earth or what a good portion of that also be pointed the other direction, going further into space. Mark Sirangelo: 18:31 It’s a great question. And those of us who’ve been involved in some of this effort get asked for why go back, you’ve been there. And it’s a good question. And particularly in his time of financial stress, it’s a question that ought to be asked. Is there value? Is there reality behind it? I think many of us, and this is a personal opinion for me, is that there’s no point to go back to the moon unless we go back to stay or to have some longterm kind of presence. And I believe that’s what NASA’s goal here is eventually to do that. What does that look like? I think it looks more like Antarctica station than it does the space station, meaning that Antarctica in many ways, if you’ve ever taken a look at it is a super harsh environment. People go there for periods of time, but don’t live there forever. Or they go to do research and why go to the probably the most hospitable part of the world go do research. What has happened in the Antarctica is both a historical marker and a precursor to what’s going to happen to us elsewhere. And the work that we do, the research that we do allows us to understand what has happened in our world and what might happen in my view, going to the moon is something that will allow us to do multiple things. It will look like eventually if the plants work out, a inhabited station, it doesn’t mean that people are going to live there as permanent residents , although maybe someday, a long time from now that might happen. It’s more about having a facility that could be made permanent and used as a permanent base, the space station for all that. We have garnered from it since it started operation. Now almost 20 years ago is a temporary facility. It’s not going to stay up forever. In fact, it’s probably going to stop being operational. Sometime this decade, it’s been a marvelous platform, but it’s also suffers from a lot of problems. It moves around a lot. It’s a machine that has to be taken care of it’s in gravity. So every day it drops down a little bit so it has to be made to be permanent. It can house only these six or seven people. And there’s many things that are very difficult. And with the space shuttle not flying anymore, we don’t have a vehicle that can properly upgrade it or fix it. And there’s really not one that’s designed to do that, moving to the moon though, and taking that effort and putting it into something that has a permanence to it. The moon is a solid mass. It doesn’t move. So whatever you do there, you’re not worried about falling out of the sky. You can invest in it because you’re going to be there for the long term . If you’re doing research about earth, what better place to put the kinds of instruments to observe earth then from a stable platform, that’s looking at earth all the time, but it also allows us to learn is it possible for us to live off of earth? Is it possible before we go to Mars, which is anywhere from a nine to twelve month journey to get there in one way, the moon is a few days to get there. So we can learn, much like we learned how to do everything in our lives we don’t start by riding a motorcycle. We start by riding a tricycle and we learn, and that’s part of what would happen on the moon base or when it’s done. But it’s a lot more than that. We believe that there are significant minerals that could help the world and society. Many of the things that we use every day are in limited supply. The moon may be able to provide us with some of those activities, but in order to do that, besides the obvious of figuring out how to get there and building some sort of structure for us to live in, you also need to do practical things. Well, how does one survive there? We can very well carry up all the water. For example, that’s needed. So NASA and its research, there was a very special mission that mapped all the surface of the moon. In that process of mapping, we found out that there could be significant water on the moon, which we didn’t fully appreciate before in the form of ice. So right now, the plans for NASA literally to go to the South pole, the moon, to bring the analogy of Antarctica even further and explore potentially a place called Shackleton’s crater and Shackleton is humane. Always wanna explore us of Antarctica. So there’s a little poetic justice there, but we’re going there because there could be significant water in the form of ice and people think of water and they think of drinking or fluids for humans. And that’s true, but water is energy. All the research we’re doing on hydrogen vehicles, for example, on having water on moon, if we could find it could power it so we might be able to have the essential elements for life and for research. And the answer is once we get there, we will do the research, whether or not we stay there long term will be determined by how valuable the research is. Richard Miles: 23:05 And this is also kind of the second part of the question in terms of Mars, make some predictions, Mark, which I know is always a dicey. I’m not going to hold you to these. He’s not legally binding, but where do you think we will be saying in 2030, regards to a moon base? And then where do you think we will be with regard to planning for preparing for a mission to Mars? Mark Sirangelo: 23:26 Obviously much of this relies on people say money, and that’s certainly true. I will say, will and there’s a interesting saying that’s carved into the national archives, goes back to Shakespeare. I believe what is past is prologue. In many cases, if you look back and if you drove back human history 500 years ago, and the people in Europe thinking, should we get on these wooden rickety boats and head out to a place that we think the earth is flat and we’re going to fall off of, we have no idea what’s out there and we have no idea how to get there, how to get back. For that time, it is not much different. We know a lot more about moon and Mars and those explorers from the 1600’s ever knew about finding your way to Plymouth, Massachusetts. And I think that’s sometimes lost on people if they did not do that. If they did not start that if society didn’t continue to explore earth, we would not be nearly as progressed as we are now. So I think in many ways, this is an extension of what’s been going on since there’ve been humans. Those people that walk from Russia to North America and became the first native Americans, they decided to move and look and explore. And I think that’s part of what we’re doing. NASA’s plans right now, which I think are reasonable, is to have some permanent presence doesn’t mean full time, but some ability to have a permanent presence on the moon by the end of the decade by 2030, which means you have transportation, you have the rockets that can take people back and forth, but you also have the supply ships that can go back and forth. The robotic rovers that will be used where humans can’t go or don’t want to go on the surface, the communication systems that will allow us to have real time communication. We’re doing this on a video call, which is enhanced by NASA technology originally. And the idea of being able to talk simultaneously and concurrently to the moon will come back into society in the form of better video calls and better communication. But I think if things go as I think they probably will, we will have that ability to have some longterm presence on the moon. By the end of the decade, the rockets are being built to capsules that will take the people back and forth being built. The science missions have been contracted. The rovers that would be moving people around on the moon are under contract or going to be under contracts . All the elements of the physiology, the medicine food have all been researched is what we did on the space stations . Figure out not that we were going to live on the space station. The point of having the space station was to figure out how we could live in space so that when we wanted to go further, we could understand what that meant. So I think that’s a reasonable goal that will in some form likely happen. And it’s not just the United States. Other countries are participating or doing your own programs and much like Antarctica , which has dozens of countries involved with it in a peaceful way, that’s what we’re hoping to see on the moon. From ther I think many of the same technologies that will be demonstrated on the moon are the precursors to what we would need to go to Mars. We have demonstrated that we could go there. We’ve had now I think, well, over a dozen missions, tomorrow’s the us has been very successful in that. I have another one flying there as we speak right now, which will be the most advanced Rover ever built. Certainly in the world or in NASA’s history. Not only will we do a lot of research and be able to traverse much of Mars. It has from the first time a helicopter onboard , we have built a small helicopter to be able to do a drone flight over Mars so that we can see a lot more of it than we could see for a rover. We also are taking samples for the first time and bringing them back. So we have shown that we can get there. We can work. We can operate. You don’t have humans there. And I think the eternal question that will be asked for the next decade or longer, probably much longer, is do we need humans? And I think that’s in many ways, the essential and maybe vital question in all of research, if you could go without a human, should you? It certainly is easier and safer, but is there exploration? And that’s, I think the question may be for many of these viewers and listeners to this, when you really come down to it, these are things that are super helpful. We learn a lot makes our world a better place, but at the end of the day, it comes down to a singular question which has been around for thousands of years. Should we go, should we take that step? Why we have a perfectly good village in Spain or in Africa or in South America? Why do we need to go explore? Why did the Polynesians need to go find Hawaii? They were living on a pretty good Island when they left. It is that kind of thing I think. And that’s the question of human will. And do we want to go to Mars? Technically, we’ve been there. We can get there again. It’s hard, it’s challenging. It costs a lot of money and we have to decide, is it worth it? Do we want to do it as a society? And I don’t think it’s one country alone. I think in order to do something that big, it needs to be some sort of coalition. Richard Miles: 28:21 Mark, one final question as a former producer of Broadway plays and large events, you know, you’re gonna have a great product, but you’ve got to sell that product. You got to get people to come in the door. So if you were given the task by NASA or a private company, and what’s the 30 second pitch to the American people, why this is important, why they need to buy our product, which is returning to space and doing whatever we need to do, sort of what would that 30 second pitch sound like? Mark Sirangelo: 28:45 I think the elements of that pitch would be, we are human because we are curious. And that curiosity isn’t much about what we do, whether or not it’s art, music, science, exploration, and there’s nothing that has been more prevalent in American society than the moon landings. It is a seminal moment of now 50 years ago. It’s still being talked about as if this happened yesterday and think about how many young people have been inspired, including me and others, to do something different, amazing, challenging to dream off of something that started as a scientific program in a cold war. And I think the 30 second pitch beyond all the things that benefits society is the fact that it is who we are as humans. We want to feel that we can do something great and something big and something special. And it doesn’t mean that the person who sees the moon program doesn’t go out and find a way to fix a major disease or to figure out how to start a computer or to do things that are in our everyday lives and make ourselves better. I think it is that spark of humanity and that spark of curiosity and that spark of passion. When you see somebody do something great, whether or not it’s in the Olympics that makes us want to go out and ride our bike farther, or if it’s going to the moon and NASA should, in my view, take advantage of that. And then they have, but they need to do more of it. Richard Miles: 30:08 Mark, thank you very much for joining me today. I’m convinced by your pitch, I’ll buy the product and we’re going to go ahead and schedule you for a podcast in 2030, about 10 years from now. And we’ll see how much we’ve come and how much we need to go. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time today on Radio Cade. Mark Sirangelo: 30:22 Alright, Richard. Thank you very much too. And good luck to you. Richard Miles: 30:25 In the next episode of our Radio Cade Space Pod here, Tony Gannon , Vice President of Research and Innovation at Space Florida, discuss the tremendous impact of public/private space collaboration. Outro: 30:36 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

Antibiotics are used to keep cattle healthy and lower their feeding costs. But as with humans, antibiotic overuse leads to super resistant bacteria. Is there a better way? This week listen to Horace Nalle, CEO of Nutrivert and the winner of the 2020 Cade Prize for Innovation. Nalle is the co-inventor of “postbiotics,” which achieve the same beneficial effect as antibiotics without the creation of super bugs. If successful, Nutrivert could upend the nearly $4 billion market in antibiotics for livestock. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:37 Antibiotics for animals, specifically livestock, they keep cattle healthy and lower their feeding costs, but they also create antibiotic resistant bacteria. Is there a better way? Welcome to Radio Cade . I’m your host Richard Miles, Today I’ll be talking to Horace Nalle, CEO of Nutrivert, the winner of the 2020 Cade Prize for Innovation. Welcome to Radio Cade, Horace. Horace Nalle: 0:58 Thank you very much, Richard. Richard Miles: 0:59 First off, congratulations. We had a virtual ceremony this year and I wasn’t able to meet you in person, but I hope you enjoyed the evening. And we want to know, did you crack open the cocktail kit that we sent all of the finalists? Horace Nalle: 1:10 Yes, we did. I had my wife and son here and we enjoyed the champagne and cocktails, thank you. Richard Miles: 1:14 We would have sent champagne, but we don’t have a license to ship booz across state lines. So who knew that you could not do that? So Horace, first of all, congratulations, it was a great field this year. I mentioned this during the ceremony, but this is the first year that we actually went beyond state of Florida for the competition. So it’s great that you’re currently in Atlanta, but you are using a technology I think developed at Auburn, correct? Horace Nalle: 1:35 Auburn and outside Auburn. Bernhard Kaltenboeck recently retired professor at the vet school is a key inventor of this technology. Richard Miles: 1:42 Okay. So at any rate, beyond the state board, of Florida, so we’re very pleased in the first year in which we expanded the prize to see teams from outside of Florida, do quite well in the competition. But before we get too much further down the road talking about the company, let’s talk about the technology itself so that our listeners fully understand what it is that we’re talking about. I give a little bit of description of antibiotics in livestock , but why don’t you first start with, what is the current state of using antibiotics for livestock? How does that work? Why is it necessary? And what is the issue? Horace Nalle: 2:11 We looked very hard and we can’t find a bigger pharmaceutical market on earth for antibiotics for livestock. Current estimates are on the order of 130,000 tons of active pharmaceutical ingredient. So this is just an enormous use of drugs. In about 1950, it was discovered that these products enable livestock to grow on less feed or to grow on worse feed. And as livestock producers experimented with the technology, they quickly found that you could cut the dose right down to a minimum and still have this effect. You could cut the dose to a dose that was too low to control bacterial disease. And it still had this miraculous affect of enabling livestock producers to reach target rates for their animals on the less feed. That was so attractive to them because feed 70% of their expense, and if they can cut the expense of the feed, but achieving the same output, it’s just everything they want. And it’s helped them to feed the whole planet in a way that they get too little credit for. Richard Miles: 3:23 Just to be clear, the antibiotics are not to treat sick cows it’s to make this whole feeding more efficient and lower the costs and therefore be able to deliver to market, or is it also used to treat cattle that are actually safe ? Horace Nalle: 3:36 It’s both Richard often antibiotics are given because animals are sick and then they tend to be given a doses sufficiently high, that they control the disease. That’s one thing and Nutrivert supports it, but a very large proportion of these drugs are given a t s ub t herapeutic doses to improve feed efficiency. And thats thing that we think has to change very honestly, that e normous volume of drug, given that doses to low to k illed the p opulations of bacteria. I t kills only the weak and when it kills only the weak bacteria, it leaves the strong and it shifts the whole population in the direction of strong bacteria that just can’t be treated with antibiotics. Then those bacteria l eap from animals to humans and give us diseases, that doctors just can’t cure. Richard Miles: 4:32 I think probably a lot of people are familiar with that. And everyone knows a lecture from their doctors when they get an antibiotic take the whole thing. Don’t stop halfway through for precisely that reason. Otherwise the unintended consequences, you’re letting the really strong bacteria live. And then they come back with a vengeance. So people in the ag business have known for a long time, antibiotics have this effect, but it seems like from what I understand, they weren’t exactly sure about the causation. They just knew antibiotics are good, even at low doses, lower the feeding costs. So along comes this technology that you are developing postbiotics as you call them, how are they the same or different from antibiotics? Horace Nalle: 5:09 That’s a very good question. Everybody knows what antibiotics about are, Richard and people generally know what probiotics are. There bacteria live bacteria, which you consume one way or another many people know that tree biometrics are things that you consume that are designed to provide food for the bacteria within you . But only in the last few years has this new class of agents called postbiotics been defined when science grasp the importance of the microbiome, they realized that at the microbiological level, the bacteria in you and there are trillions and trillions of release compounds into you. Some of them can be toxins, but that’s not what we’re talking about now. Some of them have coevolved with us in a way that’s mutually beneficial because we’ve had this bacteria in our guts for a hundred million years and more , some of the bacteria can release compounds that help us. And they’re called post-class because they kind of, after the bacteria, you need the bacteria to release them, they’re postbiotics that are good for the health of the host. Richard Miles: 6:21 So this I presume came from you and your co-inventors study of the microbiome to figure this out, right? Because it doesn’t sound like it’s necessarily intuitive. Horace Nalle: 6:30 That’s exactly right. We had to discover what it was about the bacteria in you that under antibiotic pressure, make your gut work better. And to do that, we had to think about what antibiotics work and what kind of bacteria they work on and what they do to those bacteria . And from that, we were able to kind of figure out what was being released postbiotically from the gut microbiome . Richard Miles: 6:57 So Horace, this is put into their feed , or do you have to inject this into the livestock or anything? Horace Nalle: 7:02 No it’s in the feed. Richard Miles: 7:02 And then what is the cost look like? Cause this is a significant cost as a percentage of the total feed, or is it pretty much nominal. Horace Nalle: 7:09 No, this is not a significant proportion of the overall cost of the feed. Or the overall cost of producing livestock. And we will always charge a livestock producer, just a third of what’s the feed savings that they get. So overall it will reduce expenses . Richard Miles: 7:27 So they come out ahead because even though they’re paying you a premium, they’re reducing it by well into the profit zone to make it a worthwhile transaction. Yes . Okay. So this sounds pretty big if the numbers are all correct and pretty straight forward . And one thing we’ve learned from talking to other people in the ag sector, when we talked to the president of FourH we had her on the show a few months ago and she told me in the context of FourH that agricultural producers have always been early adopters of technology, because for them, the profit margins are so thin that if you can bring them to something that is going to improve their yield or reduce crop failure or reduce watering costs or whatever it is, they’ll try it out. And if it works great, if it doesn’t work, they don’t use it. Particularly younger farmers are already prime to engage with new technology. So you put young FourHers, and then you say, here’s a new thing and they’ll go, let’s try it right away. I’d never thought about that sector being early adopters of technology before we move on to what your path to market is or how you can expand this. Tell us a little bit about the origin of that idea, who the original inventors, and then who contributed and how long has this been in development? Horace Nalle: 8:33 The original inventors are Bernhard Kaltenboeck, professor of veterinary science, at Auburn and myself, I spent a career in animal pharmaceutical companies that produce products that many of your business may have heard of like Frontline and Heartgard. And I took an early retirement in 2012. For years, I had known about the problem of low dose antibiotics for feed deficiency in livestock and the selection pressure that they create for antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. For years, I had known that the mechanism of action, the way this work was described as unknown. And it seemed to me that if you were giving 130,000 times of drugs and creating antibiotic resistance strains, it just wasn’t good enough to say, we don’t know how it works. So with Barnhard, we kind of turned off the phones and turn off the computers and put our heads together and just thought, how can that be? How can that work? We did a lot of research. So we turn the computers on the do some of the research, but we were totally focused on this one problem. And the good news is Richard in the last 10 or 15 years. This scholarly community is just woken up about the microbiome. We just didn’t think about the microbiome until this millennium. And suddenly the whole world has realized that the 30 or 40 trillion bacteria in our guts are actually doing something and Bernhard and I we’re able to kind of dig in to the literature of what the microbiome does and to tease out of it , a single thread, that thread explains how antibiotics work at low doses for growth promotion, feed efficiency. Once we understood it, we could design analogs of the postbiotics, to solve the problem. Richard Miles: 10:26 It’s interesting that you say that I’ve had a couple of other researchers on telling me the exact same thing in different contexts about the microbiome, precisely what you said. It’s like your gut, who cares. If it’s not quote unquote, a sexy organ, we don’t really even care about that. And all the things that research now discovering and how it relates to other parts of the body, how it relates to health how it relates, even mental health, a lot of things that you just wouldn’t intuitively connect. And its there. That’s pretty amazing. One thing I always find fascinating Horace is the personal journey of people in the ideas or in the invention business. So I know you’re from Philadelphia and I know that you’d like to animals as a kid, but then you went off to the big city. You went to Harvard, and then you got your law degree at University of Pennsylvania. So I’m not going to make any jokes about being a lawyer and working with farm animals. But if you want to make those jokes feel free, but tell us a little bit about your path. Were you always interested in animals, but how did that all combine in your career as a lawyer? And then you worked for pharmaceutical companies in this area? Tell us a little bit about that story. Horace Nalle: 11:25 All my life. I’ve wanted to take care of animals and make them better, make them feel better and protect them. And by the same token, we all know now that animals and humans share common repents share common, shared common diseases. It’s natural for me to apply myself to kind of disease . Then once you apply it to humans or animals, it’s all the same story . I was lucky to be able to work for the pharmaceutical company Merck. And at Merck a guy called William Campbell invented Ivermectin which he won the Nobel Prize. It has relieved more suffering from parasitic disease in humans, in animals than any other drug . And so it was a great honor and privilege to be able to work with him. Then when I decided at 55 to leave big companies, I thought, okay, this is your chance to do your own thing to chart your own course in these things you’ve already spent of doing. And that’s how Nutrivert come to be. Richard Miles: 12:25 That’s a fascinating story. Sometimes you see this, that if you’re in the midst of a large organization, some of the knocks on larger organizations is that large organizations find it difficult to be innovative. They find it difficult to be creative, cause they’re all sorts of either bad incentives or lack of incentives within a large organization. But you’re one of those folks that gained the experience. But as you said, once you went into a frame of mind where you could at least part of the time, turn off the computers and just think on one problem and really try to dig deep on that is when you develop this insight , okay. Or this is possible, but it obviously wouldn’t have been possible without your previous training in a large organization and your experience in the animal pharmaceutical business. I think that’s a great story. Horace Nalle: 13:07 Thank you. Great ecosystem of innovation. And it used to be, I think that more than happened in big companies as a proportion, that is the case now. And most of the big pharma companies realized they have to sew a lot of seeds outside the company to reap the best innovation, but there’s still an incredibly important part of the ecosystem in nurturing and cultivating these technologies and then delivering them to the world at large, right ? Richard Miles: 13:35 And particularly in pharmaceuticals where the amounts of capital that you need to properly develop and test any pharmaceutical are massive. And even the most Intrepid venture capitalist is going to pause when they look at the price tag of bringing a new drug to market, whether it’s for animals or humans, hurdles are pretty significant. And so along those lines, let’s talk about that. A lot of people in your position or situation decide, okay, well, I’ve , I’ve developed a great idea. It’s got mark potential, but developing it on my own or my own company tried to do that going to be hard. So they ended up licensing the technology to other companies. Have you thought about that? Where are you in terms of development? Is this something that Nutrivert, wants to do itself for awhile or what is the thinking along those lines to bring it to market? And then I guess there’s a subset of that question. Where are you in terms of the regulatory approval, which is always huge as you know, from your experience, where are you in that process? Horace Nalle: 14:25 I’ll answer the second question first, we have made up our mind that the right way to develop Nutrivert is as a registered animal pharmaceutical. We understand that Food and Drug Act to require us because of the claims we’re making for this product or that we will make for this product when it’s approved to register it as an animal pharmaceutical. Now that makes that makes us jump over a higher hurdle than is the case with other products and agriculture, some other products. But we’ve done this before with ivermectin, which I referenced before and we intend to do it with Nutrivert, but it means several years until approval. And it means millions of dollars in investments before you can sell. So that’s the stage we’re at. We’re funded now to continue the development of the product. And we’re aggressively moving forward with studies and FDA studies to move towards registration. The technology in our opinion wants to be extended worldwide, and it wants to be extended to all the major livestock species . That means that it may be attractive and it may be efficient economic sense for a global pharmaceutical company to project it into those areas. At every stage of our development, we’ll have two columns, one column, what it looks like if we develop it ourselves and another column, if we out license it to big pharma or others, and we will always do what’s best for the technology, what creates the most value. Richard Miles: 15:58 So if I understand your thinking on this, just as there are for humans as a whole class, so things like vitamins and minerals, right, where I can go out and take some sort of supplement and, buy it from whole foods that has not gotten FDA approval, doesn’t need FDA approval, but their claims that they can make about it are limited, right? As opposed to getting a prescription medicine in which it says it , this is going to help X, Y, and Z. And that’s the distinction you’re making, right? Because presumably you could just say, this is a supplement with limited claims and that would be good. Horace Nalle: 16:26 Well, the way Nutrivert works is the same way antibiotics work except to a hundred percent antibiotic free. As I said before, antibiotics released postbiotics from the microbiome . And we’re developing analogs of those because that’s the mechanism, Richard, just like antibiotics, which are registered drugs. We think that the ethical course is for us to register Nutrivert as an FDA approved postbiotic. Richard Miles: 16:55 Do you have any competition at the moment? Are there other companies out there doing something similar or what does that look like in terms of the competitive marketplace? Horace Nalle: 17:02 Well, everybody’s out there saying we have supplements. We have probiotics, we have prebiotics, we have enzymes, we have, immunostimulants all kinds of things are out there. In about 2017, the two Memorial Trusts did a review of all those classes. The problem is none of them are consistent. If anybody has anything that works as consistently as Nutrivert, we haven’t found out about it. And we look all the time. It’s possible that people have these things that are keeping them secret as they sometimes do with research projects. But in the published literature, we can’t find anything that delivers the consistent results that Nutrivert delivers and we think it makes sense because antibiotics deliver those results consistently. And we’re triggering the same pathway. Richard Miles: 17:51 And obviously that’d be a huge deal for a large ag producer, right? Is that reliability and consistency. Cause you don’t want a one off benefit that you can’t replicate the following year . Horace Nalle: 18:01 No they just won’t use it. If it doesn’t work consistently, you said before, if the FourH person who was telling you that the farmers are innovators and it’s true , but they’re quick adopters and they’re quick, abandoners it’s got to work or it won’t be bought. Richard Miles: 18:16 Tough audience, right? They’ll welcome you onto the farm, so to speak, but they’ll tell you to get lost. If your product doesn’t work. Horace Nalle: 18:21 That’s just fine. They’re very good at stopping by. They have to be because they have to deliver food at terrifically, low prices that they deliver that and they won’t waste money on things that don’t work. Richard Miles: 18:32 So Horace we like to give everyone on the show, an opportunity to dispense wisdom. And so you’ve had a very interesting career in a number of different areas. And you’re now right in the thick of developing new idea, what would you say to listeners who really want to pursue a career of entrepreneurship or invention? And they want to do the right things. If you are giving advice to say your 25 year old self, are there things that you think now like, wow, I should have done that. Or I shouldn’t have done that. Whatever the category you’ll probably ask to speak to groups from time to time on lessons learned. What are some of the things that you would say, Horace Nalle: 19:05 Learn the ropes and follow your passion. Lots of people when they’re asked the question, you’re just asking me to say, follow your passion. And it might just be an entrepreneur inventing Facebook. I’m not sure, but in the biological sciences and in established industries, you have to learn. I think how the world works and have experience and make a lot of mistakes and see other people make the mistake to have the robust understanding of the ecosystem that you’re entering into. So yeah, you kind of want the passion, but we couldn’t have done what we had done. If we hadn’t spent decades trying and failing and learning how the system works. Richard Miles: 19:44 That’s a great answer. And it’s a version that I’ve heard from other folks, but useful corrective to this idea of like, we’ll just follow your passion. I remember seeing a great graph. I think it was in the book Good to Great. The three Venn diagram. One was like stuff you love to do. And another will things you’re good at. And the other one was things you could actually make money at . So it’s where those three come together. Cause they don’t necessarily overlap the things that you’re really, really love to do. And the things you’re actually good at and that have some sort of value that someone’s willing to pay you for when they come together. And I remember Dr. Cade the inventor of Gatorade, who the museum is named after. He always said like, you have to be prepared. So an idea can strike you. But if you don’t have, as you said, sort of the fundamental training, you’re not going to be able to do much with that idea because you aren’t really going to understand the mechanism to make it work. And so if you have the science and you have the training and the background and idea strikes you, did you like, why is it the antibiotics work? How is it that nobody understands that there’s gotta be a reason and then you can actually do something with it. Horace Nalle: 20:44 Fully agree. Richard Miles: 20:45 Horace, this has been great conversation. I want to, again, thank you for taking the time to do the interview, but also more importantly, congratulations on winning the Cade Prize this year. You have a big idea and hopefully in a few years, we’ll have you back on the show and Nutrivert will be a roaring success and will be famous and so on which doesn’t always happen, but it happens enough to where good ideas remain good ideas. Horace Nalle: 21:10 Thank you, Richard. Pressure to be on the show. Richard Miles: 21:10 Look forward to having you back. Outro: 21:12 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida . Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Each year in the U.S., over 164,000 emergency room visits and 300 deaths are caused by falls from a ladder. Inspired by his father, Paul Stentiford has invented a simple device that makes climbing ladders safer. A general contractor, Paul and his son developed six prototypes over two years and are now moving their product to market. Paul remembers helping his father on carpentry jobs when he was four years old, and remembers him always figuring out how to make using tools less dangerous. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:37 Making ladders safer and reducing accidents at home and on the job. Welcome to your Cade . I’m your host, Richard Miles . And today I’ll be talking to Paul Stentiford President and CEO of Stantiford Safety Services and a finalist for the 2020 Cade Prize. Welcome to Radio Cade, Paul . Paul Stentiford: 0:54 Thank you. Happy to be here. Richard Miles: 0:56 Let’s start right away and talk about your invention because to me, I think it’s fascinating that it’s both extremely useful, but very simple by design and simple to use from what I’ve seen, most people are familiar with ladders. So I’d like listeners to understand from the get go, what is the problem that you’re trying to solve and exactly how your invention works? Why don’t you describe a standard extension ladder, which I think most people have seen, or they’ve used a lot of homeowners, handyman have standard extension ladders. So what is the problem with those ladders? And then tell us how your invention fixes that. Paul Stentiford: 1:28 Sure. It’s only for extension ladders. Anyone that’s familiar with one, there are two sections that slide together. If you want to traverse up to a roof area, you are going to set the ladder, the appropriate distance from the wall and start with a rope, pulling the second section, the top section up. So as it slides up to the desired height where your leaning it against the house, and then you start climbing it when you climb it, where that second section is, is the traverse area. That’s difficult because you have an overlapping section that you have to step out over that step. More importantly, when you’re coming down, because it’s in about two and a half inches to the next step. That’s where the problem area is. This device is basically all aluminum welded, three steps that gradually take you to the fourth step down below that offset by half inch increments. In other words, you could hook this on the ladder right below the offset. It’s two vertical side rails at rest on the side rails of each ladder on right and left. And then the steps overhang onto the rungs of the ladder below the offset. So that if you took a straight edge, if you can picture this, took a straight edge from where that next rung is on the offset and sticks out and go four rungs down. This device would plane out with the nose of each of those steps. So your foot cannot miss it. Richard Miles: 2:46 When you entered the Cade Prize and foresaw the application, I have a tendency to read too quickly. And so my first impression was it A, this was like a different type of ladder. And then B, that your device was something relatively that you had to retrofit a ladder with and on both counts for number one, you’re not having to go out and buy a new ladder. And then number two, once I saw a video of your device, it looks extremely simple to put on. You don’t need any tools or any expertise. You can just basically hang it where it needs to go. Is that more or less accurate? Paul Stentiford: 3:16 Sure. Correct. It’s a safety device for an extension ladder, basically eliminating that dangerous offset. It’s all welded aluminum, very durable. It just hooks on, as you said, gravity holds it in place, the rungs hook on behind the existing rungs of the ladder. So it’s not going to fall off. And it’s just amazing how simple it is and how easy it works to keep you safe on a ladder. Richard Miles: 3:39 So one of the things that we hear a lot from inventors, particularly ones who come up with these relatively simple solutions, a lot of people say like, wow, I wish I had thought of that. Cause they see right away the value of it, that it’s a relatively simple solution and they’re kind of mad at themselves. They didn’t think of it at first , but of course every idea starts with an insight. So how did you first come up with this idea or who did, and then how did you develop that idea into what it became? Because obviously the final product is probably different than your original concepts in some way. So tell us about what was the original inspiration for this and then how did you figure it out as you developed it. Paul Stentiford: 4:15 Sure I have to tell you the idea, the light bulb that went off to the person said is my father. He’s the catalyst of this idea. And he’s 93 now, he’s his health is a lot different, unfortunately to what it was before. But back then he was 87. He’s very active man up until a couple of years ago, still is by himself. Does everything himself drives and everything works on projects constantly. And he’s always got the creative mind, he’s from England. So I relate him to the Dyson vacuum guy, cause he’s always got, I got an ideas . So he was going up an extension ladder up and down it when he was 87 and coming down, he almost missed the off set and he didn’t fall. But he said, I never realized how dangerous that off set is. So he said, I have an idea and he described it to me. And then I started listening to his idea and bringing him materials to create these prototypes. We went through six prototypes to end up with what we have today took two years. And then I thought I’m been a general contractor since 1985. And I see the value, this one idea that my dad had. He’s always had good ideas, but this one is hitting on all eight cylinders. And I took it further where I went to a patent attorney in Gainesville and we got two patents on it . It’s a whole nother story. Then time and money, what it takes to do that. But it’s all good. And the attorney that I worked with was wonderful and my dad had the football and it took it down the field because he didn’t have the know how or where it was all to carry it the rest of the way. But he had a great idea, like I said, right. Richard Miles: 5:40 That is a great story. I just wanted to take a little sidelight. You know, you talked about your father, all of a sudden realizing, wow, this is really dangerous. And I can’t remember what the statistic is, but there are thousands of people every year that are seriously hurt or killed from ladder accidents. I know it’s not all from missing the step, but the ladders are kind of dangerous aren’t they? Paul Stentiford: 5:59 As a general contractor. I’m very aware of continuing education every year since 1985, ladders are 80% of job site injuries. Okay . The average worker’s comp claim for a ladder injuries is $40,000. Okay? So there’s a percentage of those that we know is navigating that offset where the injury occurs. Fortunately, most falls from ladders are not death. That’s a good thing. However, the falls are likely to be a lifelong injury. And so if someone dies, it’s typically an insurance payout of X amount of dollars and it’s over. And the other part of the person that lives through an injury, if it’s a lifelong injury, there’s compensation of lost time for work there’s medical surgeries, et cetera, that a lot of times will surpass the amount of what the person that passed , had incurred from the insurance company. So it’s unfortunate either way. We don’t want to see anyone lose their life on a ladder fall. We don’t want to see anyone injured or injured for life from a ladder fall. So this could be a remedy for a both again on the monetary side, saving money, not only for people but insurance companies and rates, as long as you keep those injuries from that occurrence, I feel it’s so revolutionary, like an airbag in a car, right in an airbag saves lives. We know thousands and thousands of lives have been saved with airbags . I think this could save thousands and thousands of injuries and deaths on ladders on extension ladders, Richard Miles: 7:22 Because it’s so simple. You don’t really have to train or teach anyone when how to use this. It’s very intuitive. You just sort of look at it. Oh, okay. I know exactly what to do with this thing. One thing Paul, that you have done, that’s different. And in some ways harder, a lot of inventors, but they’ll do, they’ll come up with the idea. They get their prototypes, they get their patent , which all of you done, but then they will license it to a much larger company or manufacturer, and then they get a proceeds from that. But you’re at this point, manufacturing your product, which is a whole level of complexity, more difficult, right? Because you now have to worry about quality control, right. And making sure that every single one is built the same way and as reliable and so on. That’s a level of sophistication it’s difficult, but you already have a lot of experience, right? As the general contractor, how much manufacturing had you done before to take that step of getting involved on the manufacturing end? Paul Stentiford: 8:11 Well, like I said, it was years of prototypes . This thing started as five steps long, and then we went to four steps, went to three steps for it to be effective and safe, where it’s so effective, you could blindfold yourself and navigate up and down the ladder and not know where that offset is. That’s how effective it is. So after we formed Stentiford Safety Services and the branding of the names, Sten Step along with our names , Stentiford, then obtaining the patents. The next was to see if there was any interest. I really didn’t find any interest from a lot of manufacturers or anyone in that regards to the point that I thought we need to start producing this ourselves. We’re the manufacturer. And then we threw a lot of time. Vetting folks found a manufacturer that could produce the exact model from the prototype that we, there was a lot of things that were important on it, no sharp edges or corners, all of them, them hand welded joints and everything powder coated with all of the instructions and patent information and website all powder-coated on it as well. So that it’s somewhat indestructible and weatherproof because this thing is going to take a lot of abuse when it’s thrown in the back of a truck or dropped down from a roof or in the weather elements all the time ladders are typically extension ladders , mostly outside. So they take all the effects of the sun and ultraviolet rays and rain, et cetera. So it’s extremely durable and it’ll last the lifetime. Richard Miles: 9:31 You kind of knew what the problem was. And so on how steep of a learning curve was it for you on the manufacturing and product development side? Did you just have to learn on your own or did you have advice or get help from someone like to figure out that taking a product to market like even from getting the patent, did a lot of people give you advice or did you teach yourself what all the steps were? Paul Stentiford: 9:52 From my knowledge, and then speaking with a lot of people, because I’m a general contractor, I can build anything from high end homes to large commercial buildings. The manufacturing process is a little different, but I did seek advice from folks that I knew that were in line with that. I had a business consultant that I hired that connected me with an agent that connected me with a manufacturer that’s where it went. And these are folks that are professionals and provide that service. And that’s where I took it. So I still funded it. I never realized how much money can go into something like that. But that’s what it takes between the patents and the manufacturing process. And then it goes on because you have to provide product liability insurance. Once you put it on the market and social media advertising. So all of that is kind of like a diesel engine. You gotta , you start that engine and your diesel fuel for it is money for the project. So you gotta keep it fueled or that shuts down. Richard Miles: 10:47 Paul, we like to talk a lot about inspiration on this show. Cause all inventors in some way are inspired, not just by the invention itself, but just the way that they do business maybe are usually inspired by ideas or other people. And you’ve mentioned that you had been very inspired by your father. Sounds like he has led really incredible life. You said he was an immigrant to this country from England. He worked as a carpenter in New York, correct? Paul Stentiford: 11:07 A brief history on my dad. Yeah. He is my mentor and best friend. And I learned a lot from him. His family’s from England. They came in through Ellis Island in the early 19 hundreds. So he was actually born in America with two of his brothers. He’s got three sisters, two brothers. And he’s one of, only two that are surviving so far because of their age. But when he was five, my grandfather, he was a licensed electrician in New York. He sent them all back to England because my grandmother had to have some treatments for breast cancer and he wanted it to be done in England. They all grew up there. They were there. My grandfather had gone back to England until he was 18. And he and his two brothers, they were American citizens. They joined the American Army, volunteered during world war two. And fortunately they all survived. The war ended. They all came back to America and the sisters and their parents, all of them came back here as American citizens. My grandfather, he instilled that in my father and his two brothers. He was a Master Sergeant during World War I. He volunteered for World War II . He volunteered and it was a Master Sergeant for the British Army. So he told my father and his two brothers, a country worth living in his country worth fighting for. And they just had that instilled in . So coming back to that, he learned hands-on Woodcraft in England and wood shops, actually Thomas Edison’s general electric lab in England. He worked in there and in the blueprint wood workshop there, he came back to New York in 1948, joined the carpenter’s union. He was in union foreman. For many years, actually in the 1964, world’s fair in 1962, he worked on the Ford pavilion when the 1964 Mustang was rolled out. And during that time there was a group of men came by, led by one man. And he met that one, man that was Walt Disney. He’s had an interesting life. He’s always had a shop and always building things as well on his own for family and different things like that. So he’s just very creative guy. And like I said, he’s had years and years, and this was probably the best idea I’ve seen where I thought we need to carry this through. Richard Miles: 13:05 What are some of your earliest memories of your dad? I presume you probably had a shop at home. Did you hang around the shop or did you get a chance to sometimes to go to work with him and start to see him in action? Or what’s the first thing you recall growing up as a little kid? Paul Stentiford: 13:18 Since I was a kid, when I say a kid four or five years old, I was always with him when he did little projects, I was always on them with him . And if he did anything like special, fine or woodwork, if I wasn’t filling nail holes or doing these simple paths as a kid and then grew into hands on like him, but I took another route instead of the hands on, I got a degree in building construction and then general contractors license when I was 23 and then worked for companies in general contracting as a project manager and superintendent and vice president operations until I started my company 17 years ago. Richard Miles: 13:52 Wow. Did he give you like a little tool set when you were little or something? Or did you show he’s used real tools? It sounds like you are doing the real stuff from pretty early age. Paul Stentiford: 14:01 Yeah. The kid’s tool set was short lived until I was working with regular tools that he had. He had a lot of machines in his shop and he was always adamant about safety and always held his hands up and said, look, I have all my fingers because safety is so important. And just working on machines safely under his supervision as a kid, but he was always with me guiding me and making sure safety was so important. And like I said, he has no severe injuries from working on machines constantly and tools because he’s always erred on the edge of safety. Richard Miles: 14:32 Right. And this is also common. We heard this from a lot of inventors. You know, the idea for a specific invention might come in a flash, but they’ve actually been thinking about the topic for quite a long time. So it sounds like your dad was the sort that always thought, like how can I make whatever tool is easier or safer to use. Paul Stentiford: 14:49 Funny you should say that I never realized, I know he came up with this idea for the ladder, but as you said it, I never realized how much growing up. He always stress safety on machines, not as simple ladder . Like you said, this device is kind of like, everyone looks at him like, why didn’t I think of that? It’s so simple. And it’s such a problem child on an extension ladder and the higher you go, the more you want to be real guarded and careful with that offset that you don’t miss it because you’ll fall further down. But I never thought about that. How much he stressed safety when I was younger and he’s always been in my mind from him. Richard Miles: 15:20 Right. I think that’s probably why your product’s going to do well. Right? Because once you see it, you don’t think about like, I wonder if this is used for what or how it use it. You just automatically get it. Oh of course. And that’s when you start thinking like why on Earth wasn’t as developed before? And one of my first reactions, when I first read about Sten Step was like, wow, I was amazed at other equipment manufacturers, or ladder manufacturers h ave not already done something similar. C ause it is really beautiful a nd i t’s simplicity t he design and you don’t have to think about it at all. We’re a very creative country i n the United States. And your dad is certainly one example of that. And a lot of people still every day come up with an idea and they think of getting a patent and selling a product. This has been popularized in the last 15 years with Shark Tank and other shows like that. And then you’ve actually done that. You’ve done w ith a lot of people, really dream of doing a nd they have an idea and they finally get it on the shelves. You mentioned that it took y ou a long couple of years. So at this point having already been through, a nd I know you’re not at the finish line yet, right? You’re still trying to get this product to market, but what advice or pearls of wisdom would you have to someone listening right now? They might be a researcher at the university, lot of inventions o r come up with nurses in hospitals b ecause they figure out how to get machines to work better. And they just f igured out what would you tell them about, okay, you’ve got a solid idea. You want to commercialize it. You want to get i n stores. What sort of advice would you give that person? Paul Stentiford: 16:40 First I’d give the two Ps that’s patience and perseverance. It’s a long process, no matter what a patent doesn’t happen overnight, you have to do a search. It takes time to develop it and get it right and complete it. And then you constantly have to persevere during that process, as well as the next step. If you’re going to find someone to take it from you and buy it, however it’s segmented with royalties or whatever, or manufacture yourself or find a manufacturer that all takes perseverance. If you’re in the knowledge of that process, that’s all the better. But , um , like I said, general contractors , a little different to a manufacturer, but it’s just navigating your way through those things and asking a lot of questions, seeking advice from people that are willing to share it and sharpen your edge. So you’re better on the next round. And the other part I have to say, I’m blessed to have my dad to have this idea that he came up with to bring it to fruition, to bring it to the finished product that we have manufactured in hand, starting a big rollout to distribute and blessed to have the know how and the financial wherewithal to carry it as a contractor , we survive the great recession. We’re still under the same name and never defaulted, always bonded and have zero litigation. So I’m proud of that and proud that we’ve been blessed to be able to financially carry this thing to the point of that . Richard Miles: 17:55 Well, it’s all very solid advice. Maybe have a future as a consultant at some point down the road, but I want to congratulate you again. One for making it to finals of the 2020 Cade Prize with Sten Step looks like a fantastic product and idea, and I hope it does well. And I think it will do well. Like I said, because it is so simple to understand and simple to use. I look forward to checking in on your progress and hope to see you in Gainesville at some point at the kid museum. Thanks very much for being on the podcast. Paul Stentiford: 18:21 Thank you, happy to share. Outro: 18:24 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists , Jacob Lawson.

Millions of people each year face natural coastal disasters, leaving them without water, and electric power. A Wave Energy Converter named Platypus, using only oceanic wave motion can continuously generate enough electrical charge to operate a seawater desalinator that turns saltwater into clean drinking water, or it can provide sufficient power for heating, lighting, or other electrical items needed in emergency situations. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade , who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio: 0:37 Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host James Di Virgilio. Today we’ll be visiting with one of our Cade Prize inventors. He’s working on something very, very interesting. In fact, he’s created many different things I like to welcome to the show Mark Supal, chief technology officer at Engineering Technologies, LLC founded in January of 2019. Mark you’re working on something that, to my knowledge, hasn’t been done before. Very interesting concept. Tell us about it. Mark Supal: 1:05 Thank you for the introduction. What the product is, it’s called Platypus and we named it Platypus because it has two arms that bounce up and down, kind of like a tail and a bill on a Platypus. And it bounces in ocean waves. Turns generators to produce electricity and the electricity can either be stored in batteries, right at the machine and use there, or it can be routed to the shore via a marine cable. And again, it’s for producing and harvesting ocean energy. James Di Virgilio: 1:29 So is anyone working on or has anyone worked on anything like this before using the ocean waves to produce usable energy? Mark Supal: 1:37 Many universities and big companies have tried to produce machines that generate megawatts of electrical energy. They’re very expensive and they haven’t necessarily been successful to sell electricity at a cost that makes sense, or is comparable to like wind or solar energy. What makes this product unique is that it’s very small in size. It was designed to be shipped and airdropped into emergency regions that suffer from coastal disasters, like the strike we recently had from hurricane Laura , where people might need water. And to produce this water, you need low scale power. So this machine produces the order of 50 Watts, which can power a decelerator to produce fresh drinking water, but what’s interesting is upon investigation. We found many companies that need things other than to sell a nation of water. They need to power all sorts of scientific buoys in the ocean. James Di Virgilio: 2:25 So if I’m needing to power of buoy , I grabbed this Platypus. I drop it somewhere out in the ocean. I’m assuming it runs on solar power. And then it gives me an injunction with wave power. Is it just wave power? Tell me how I’m getting energy. And then how am I using the energy? Mark Supal: 2:40 No, it uses strictly the ocean energy. So the waves bounce up and down. And the movement of the wave rotates a generator, which produces the electricity and it’s stored in the batteries are used directly at the buoy. So the Platypus can be tethered to the buoy, right to the buoy via cable, which within say five or six feet away. The other implementation of this Platypus is to actually incorporate it onto buoys. So I’m currently working with NOAA, which is our National Oceanic, Atmospheric Administration and a national data buoy center to come up with a plan to either incorporate the Platypus as part of the buoy or incorporate the Platypus underneath the buoy or to tether the Platypus to the buoy, to get the electricity from the Platyous, to the buoy, to drive all their equipment and all sorts of weather equipment and mapping equipment and other emergency equipment on the buoys that they use to monitor everything from again, weather to oil spills. James Di Virgilio: 3:31 Okay. So this is like a power plant. As you mentioned, and previously solar power was something that was used out in the oceans. It could be used. I’m assuming at a decent level. I’ve seen these things before. Mark Supal: 3:42 Yes. James Di Virgilio: 3:42 But your solution would essentially never fail, right? Because the ocean is always in motion . So if it’s working correctly, it’s generating continuous power. Mark Supal: 3:50 Yeah. So here’s what we found out. Currently solar power is being used. There were problems with solar power and believe it or not birds like to perch on solar panels. And when birds sit there, they, they drop their debris onto their panels and the panels get cluttered with the bird droppings. And it’s very expensive then to send a ship out there at $30,000 a day to wipe the solar panel clean that’s one issue, which was unusual, fine . And this is all this information came out of a whole interview process that I conducted from various people who use buoys. So you’ve got this avian falling . You also have low light conditions, anything above or below the 50th parallels is the sunlight is not intense enough to necessarily power buoys. So it becomes expensive to put many solar panels on buoys. You have to lay out a lot of redundant panels and it takes up a lot of valuable real estate on the buoy itself. Okay. Those were the two main concerns, the avian falling and substitute for low light conditions and the big market value for the Platypus is that it operates at nighttime in the dark. So you have buoys up in Alaska and certain times of the years, there is no light. So people are scrambling trying to figure out how to power buoys with an alternative to solar panels. But right now people are still using solar panels. James Di Virgilio: 4:57 Interesting. So then you are the world’s first I presume of this type to generate power via this method for a buoy. Mark Supal: 5:04 We’re the first to get to a product that’s commercially available that can be shipped very simply of the size of your arm span , say about six feet across and can be folded up into a box to be taken out to the ocean, to be used either with scientific equipment or to be used, perhaps even a sailor who wants to throw this thing over his vessel in order to produce fresh drinking water in the case that he’s marooned at sea. James Di Virgilio: 5:27 All right . So we here at the Cade we love ideas. The Cade Prize obviously is honoring creative problem solving. It’s clearly evident that this is a very creative solution to a problem that most people were not even aware that we had. I’m hearing you mention things like you conducted interviews to learn what was going on, what needed to be done. But before the interviews, how did this idea even come about? How were you aware that there was a need for this? Mark Supal: 5:49 This came out, really went out by the NRL, our National, Renewable Energy Laboratory. They have a contest for companies to produce again, fresh drinking water. After these coastal disasters, power outages, diesel generators become hazardous to airdrop fuels might not be available or difficult to get to. So the whole idea came out of a challenge that said, Hey, we need somebody to figure out how to create fresh drinking water. They left it up to companies to figure out how to do this. My thought was, well, if I’m going to be creating fresh drinking water, why not just create electricity because you can always already buy a commercially available desalinater, which is electrically powered. So if I can produce electricity, not only can I produce desalinated water, but I can power all sorts of emergency equipment, everything from radios to warming blankets, to emergency LED lighting and so forth and so on. So that was my plan. And that was the approach I took to go beyond desalination and just produce electricity, which can power, whatever the need may be. James Di Virgilio: 6:45 Now, how would you power? I’m imagining I’m living in a coastal home. My power goes out. How would I use the Platypus to power items? You just mentioned in my home or radio. Mark Supal: 6:54 This thing sits within two to 300 yards of the shore. And there’s a marine cable that unrolls toward the shore. And you can either use the DC power directly, the 12 volt DC power that it supplies, or you can convert or all sorts of DC, AC converters. That would power. Again, this is all small scale, power, 50 Watts. This is not going to power your house. This is a very unique product. It’s not designed to produce again, kilowatts or megawatts 50 Watts. This is for emergency type equipment, whether it be a desalinator or lighting, if you had to power led lighting at your home, that could happen. But as far as powering something like your air conditioning system, which draws maybe kilowatts, you’re not going to get that to happen. James Di Virgilio: 7:32 So if I’m using this on a coastal home, and I know where the market is, where we’re going to go with the market, but is there a possible residential use for this? And let’s just stick with LED lighting, right? A storm hits we’re out of power for weeks. It’d be great to have some sort of lighting at night. That’s not candle light or a flashlight. How would this work though? How many Platypuses do we need to power a neighborhood’s worth of led lighting on the coast? Mark Supal: 7:55 Right, Right. Well, this one is 50 Watts. This was meant again, to satisfy this need to power this desalinater. And our approach is to develop this thing into a larger Platypus that would produce something, unheard of say, a thousand Watts, or maybe even 2000 Watts, which you could use to power, maybe your home or part of our home or part of our community. So our approach is more incremental. Let’s solve this problem first at a very small scale, a 50 watt scale, and then step up to many companies have launched very expensive projects, trying to right on the onset, produce megawatts or kilowatts. And we’re saying, Hey, it’s a very difficult problem, obviously, to deal with the very harsh ocean environment. So we’re starting very small, figuring out all the different problems we’re going to run into in order to even produce something as little as 50 Watts and then go from there. So it would basically sit in the water, just like a turbine. A wind turbine sits into water. Many turbines already exist off the coast of like Lake Erie for instance. And they have cabling that runs on the ocean floor to a station and then to your home. James Di Virgilio: 8:54 So who is the market for this who owns most of these buoys? Who are you trying to say, Hey, this is a need. We can fix this. We can solve your problem . Mark Supal: 9:01 NOAA is the big outlet that we’re currently working with. They have a branch, which is then the National Data Buoy Center, which has over 300 boys just around the coast of the US. So this is the market that was uncovered after many interviews, which shocked me. And they’re looking for, believe it or not, for as little as 10 Watts, which seems ridiculous. 10 Watts is not a lot of power, but they have no way to power these buoys in this darkness. So they’re all over this idea. We’ve been meeting with them, trying to figure out those things you talk about. Well, how do you interface this thing with this existing buoy? Is it a tether? Is it a part of the buoy? Those are the things we’re currently working on. James Di Virgilio: 9:34 If you’re able to find a way to make this stay. I imagine if you tether it, there’s a risk the tether breaks, right? If you make it a part of the buoy, it’s probably the best way to go. Of course, it could still break down. You have to service it, but I’m imagining you’re already improving significantly what they have. In fact, with hurricane Laura , I was reading just yesterday that when it came to storm surge and this shocked me, I’m like, how do we not know what the storm surge was? I know we have buoys out there. I live in Florida. There’s buoys all over the place. How is a buoy not actively monitoring where the storm surge is. And essentially there’s not very many buoys that are capable of reporting real time data. It sounds like with your solution, you would actually be able to provide real time data all over the place. I could imagine a buoy defense wall, so to speak. That’s giving forecasters a warning because you could have your Platypus is out in the Gulf of Mexico, out in the Atlantic Ocean out wherever. And it’s telling you at each grid mark. Hey, this storm surge is growing. Hey, this is where it’s worse. That would be actionable evidence to then more localize the forecast, right? Mark Supal: 10:30 Absolutely. And even beyond forecasting, which will be a growing problem as climate changes. So we know that the number of buoys is going increase in the ocean. So that’s fact, but do we also know that power at sea is going to be something we need in the future. Right now, we already see electric vehicles and people are producing electric boats. So you can imagine a Platypus, so to speak gas station on electric station though, where you pull up recharge your jet ski or your electric boat and move on, or you can even imagine the stations for the whole group of people like the military and the scientific community who uses these underwater gliders, which stay under the ocean in stealthy missions , which don’t want to surface because they get detected. So we are imagining this Platypus as having underwater charging ports, whereby these gliders can pull up, fill up electrically, fill up and then go about their mission. So believe it or not the market for power at sea. It is tremendous. James Di Virgilio: 11:21 I’m imagining James Bond. He uses an underwater device, I think in a couple of films that are like that. But what’s interesting. Mark is you’re talking about solving a problem, and obviously we’ve spoke with countless inventors on this very podcast, and that’s how it always starts solve one problem. And then you ask yourself, is your solution scalable? I think obviously you’ve proven that your solution is eminently scalable and to a far distant future, depending on how things go and where we go, but harnessing the power of the ocean certainly seems like a brilliant idea. Now, having a brilliant idea and getting your idea funded are two different things. How have you been able to fund so far the Platypus? How have you built prototypes? What have you been able to do to actually make this idea a reality? Mark Supal: 11:59 Well, so I happen to be very handy and my parents were blue collar, but my dad was a plumber. So I’m very familiar with assembly and using pipes . So the way this product is made, out of a PVC pipe and it comes in all sorts of diameters. So I started with one inch pipe and the motors you can buy come in all sorts of diameters and you can scale a product up or down quite easily. And it all fits together within a shell of PVC pipe. So the funding actually came from me, my personal funds. And we’re talking about very small units units that are producing on an order of say 10 Watts of power. So to build one of these things may be unordered five, $600, but I’m able to buy all the parts. I’m not custom manufacturing, any parts, everything I’m buying is off the shelf, pieces of pipe are being glued together and believe it or not today, you can find almost any component you might need, whether it be a special sized fitting, or whether it be a certain board to take some unusual wave form and converted into DC electricity. So it’s not all that difficult to fund of course, to go to this next step. I’m looking for funding. And this is where the Cade Prize came along. They’re offering a wonderful chance for companies who are inventing new products to fund their ideas. James Di Virgilio: 13:04 And that’s a great pitch because that leads right into my next question. But it also talks about organizations like the Cade , right? Who support innovation, new venture capital. Basically you need money to fund ideas, right? You have an idea. Your idea is good. And now if I drop an order for 300 of these onto your lap, you have to find a way to make those right. You have to raise the money to construct them. And a lot of times that’s lost. I think in the idea generation process amongst the listening public is how do you actually make one of these? And then here you are going around. I imagine that you’re applying to a variety of different innovative awards, and you use this grant money or this money, one in prize money to then create either more prototypes or to build more product for you. How far away do you think you are from actually having this be in the water as a usable purchasable product on a large enough scale where there’s a couple of hundred of these in the ocean. Mark Supal: 13:51 I would say about a year and a half, not only are your client to the Cade Prize, but also we’re writing a proposal through the National Science Foundation. They offer startup companies a chance to do research in science and produce products. So there are a number of other avenues that we’re following to fund our products, but to do this again, because it is such a harsh environment we are using specialized materials, stainless steels, Naval brass, and so forth. But obviously when you get something out there , there are going to be failures and you’re going to have to correct and build a product that’s reliable. So I don’t see this product being released for about another year and a half. We are currently talking to and trying to strategize with NOAA to get one of these things on one of their buoys , either on or tethered to one of their buoys is say the next year. So , uh, even at that, you got to remember what that harsh environment you’re dealing with. There are going to be all sorts of issues that crop up. This thing has moving parts. You have Marine life. That’s going to grow on these parts. You have weather conditions that may distort the parts. You have boats that may collide with this thing as it is. When you talk to people who just buoys out there and the ocean, there are all sorts of issues with everything from boats, collided with the buoys to vandalism. James Di Virgilio: 14:57 It’s a lot of wisdom there. And what you said, Mark so much of creating a new product is to in fact, anticipate all the things that not can go wrong, but will go wrong because you think, Hey , I’ve got this solution. This is going to work just like, I think it will. But inevitably there are so many unseen things that will occur that you’re going to have to work on improving . And clearly we’re hearing through your process, that there’s a lifetime of experience here. When it comes to creating something, taking something to a marketplace, anticipating what needs to be done. Those are all things that of course are going to help the Platypus succeed. Now, Engineering Technologies, doesn’t just make the Platypus it’s drive from what I understand, Mark, and you can tell us more about it is to use clean energy items to improve the world around us. Now you’re working on a couple of other things as well at the same time. What else are you producing or developing right now? Mark Supal: 15:44 Oh , if I come from education and we need to educate not only students, but adults about how to sort plastics, how to deal with trash. So what we , uh, created and actually are, have already released it’s available on both the app store and on Google play. It’s called the E- bin, E hyphen bin. It’s an app that encourages people to recycle and the way it works, you scan a little sticker on a bottle, the QR code, they call them, you scan the QR code on the item that you might be tossing out. And it identifies the type of material it is. And it says, Hey, you need to put that in Bin, ABC or D. So we’re encouraging kids to sort plastics and metals and glasses, and then dispose of those in a proper way. So that’s one product. We have so many different things, but the other one, believe it or not, and it’s a toilet seat let’s that cleans itself in today’s world, where people are afraid of viruses and so forth. This particular s eat has a mechanical arm that wipes the unusual shape on a bowl, the surface of the bowl, and basically disinfects that. So y ou may sit on that thing and not be concerned about picking up a disease or a virus. James Di Virgilio: 16:43 So many creative things. What , what comes to mind for me when it comes to clean energy. And this is perhaps a devil’s advocate question. Most of the time, they don’t work. Not because they don’t actually work, but they don’t work in a marketplace because they’re not as efficient to use. Whether it be, Hey, we can use a fossil fuel or we can use something else. Or it tends to be a solution that is too expensive or too slow or not ubiquitous. The things you’re working on. Don’t seem to suffer from maybe some of the same problems that you would have from, like you mentioned, these larger scale, very ambitious. Let’s switch the world over to an electric car in the year, 2005. If we’re not ready yet, how much in your thought process goes into that? Hey, is this too soon to be released? Mark Supal: 17:25 The key is to find a customer like you alluded to earlier here, you really need to interview and listen to the people who may buy this product. I did work in a research environment and unfortunately too many times researchers create wonderful things, but there’s no market for them. Nobody wants them. So the key is to actually do your market research homework first and see who your customer might be. Otherwise you might produce something fantastic. No one really cares about how the technology works. They just care that it might solve a problem or a headache for them. James Di Virgilio: 17:54 Yeah. So well said, yeah, that’s it. That’s key. That’s one Oh one. But oftentimes, as you said, that’s lost in Gainesville, Florida. We have become one of the largest incubator cities in the country. We produce more business ideas and almost anywhere else. And that’s something I find myself frequently saying is your idea has to serve a market need. And this is gonna be one step further. And this surprises people, the reason an idea marketplace works so well, is it is the most efficient, you mentioned there’s products or there’s ideas we can create that are really neat. But society in an idea, marketplace will fund the ones that are most important that are most pressing right now. And that’s actually a good thing. That’s what you need. Of course, you could have humans spending time creating all sorts of things, but if it helps one person, whereas they could have created something that helps hundreds of thousands of people, you’d certainly rather have that be the latter . And that’s something you mentioned. Well, one of the easiest ways to figure that out is to go find out what are some market needs? Who is my customer? How many products would they need? Is this a high level need for them? Or is this way down their list of things they would want? Those are all really, really wise things to look at . And Mark yourself. Interesting background. Obviously you are both a very accomplished educator giving a lot of your time to teaching. You’ve won a variety awards for those things. You’re also a professional engineer. And now in your retirement, you’re creating a company to design products, a lot of fascinating stuff you mentioned to me before the podcast, something that I wanted to talk about, which is this idea that you really learned how to present your ideas from teaching. Mark Supal: 19:17 Right? Unfortunately, a lot of times teachers aren’t given a lot of credit in their profession, but what I found, I actually moved from industry into teaching, which I thought was wonderful because I was able to bring a lot of cool things to kids that were actually valuable skills that they might need on job. But on the flip side, as the teacher, I developed the ability to present, which is difficult coming out of say a four year degree in engineering to go up in front of a group and talk about something tactical. So after many, many years of teaching, he thinking to myself, well , I need to get back with a company. And now that I have a better set of skills, presentation skills, I think that I would be able to move quite easily through the company and promote ideas better. What I’m trying to say is that to teaching you learn how to present information and by presenting information, people understand your ideas and can make decisions, corporate decisions I’d say so. Yeah, I think not only did I learn from the kids, but also I learned how to present in a way that people can understand what you’re saying. James Di Virgilio: 20:07 That sounds like a great takeaway. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or one now is to hone your communication skills. If you understand the technology behind what you’re creating, but you’re unable to get your friends who are lay person. So to speak, to understand what you’re doing, it’s not going to motivate a marketplace and that’s something you can practice and a skill you can develop, which you mentioned, teaching is exactly that, right? Take an idea. That’s new to people, make it accessible, have them grab onto it, have them get inspired by it. That’s, that’s very, very powerful stuff. Now, last but not least. I want to talk about something you brought up as well in our pre show, which is very interesting. One of your first inventions happened a long time ago in the 1980s. And it was something called a Hydro Built. You can Google this on your own hydro belt, Supal, it’ll pop right up. You’ll see images of Mark himself wearing this belt. Now this was an interesting idea. You told me this product sold out. It was actually very successful, right ? But unfortunately it’s life sort of ended there. You still have these, you still use them. What is a hydro belt ? And tell us a little bit more about it. It’s just an interesting, innovative story. Mark Supal: 21:06 So I was an avid triathlete in back in the infancy of the sport. This event wasn’t monitored very closely and I was out there . Swimming in an event is raining. I thought, Oh my God, I’m going to drown out here. I can’t even figure out where the shoreline is, but he didn’t make it back here I am today. So I said, there needs to be a product for safety. So what I invented was a very thin reusable swim belt . You wear it around your waist has the CO2 cartridge. You yank a cord and it inflates to give you the 15 pounds, which is equivalent to a life vest . And basically you can save yourself in an emergency because during these events, there may be thousands of swimmers around you. You may be kicked, you may cramp up. And if that happens, you can drown . And unfortunately, over the years and those eighties, those early eighties, people were drowning. So this hydro belt, it’s a emergency swim belt. And I sold it to triathlete swimmers. I sold all the products I had. And what was interesting about that product, even though it was being advertised in a triathlete magazine, there are all sorts of other people who were asking for it like Cessna pilots who needed to have a product that they could throw on the back of their plane in order to fly over the great lakes and people kayaking needed it. And then I had a lot of interesting calls from pool companies. Believe it or not in the state of Florida, they needed a product for their employees to wear . When they worked around pools, a safety product and event that one of these people falls into pool. They don’t swim, they drown. So this product was a way to save yourself in event of an emergency in the water. I sold all the products I had. The big problem with that particular product was getting liability insurance, the liability insurance, the premium alone on that product was under order of, you know , 60 to $90,000 a year. And I wasn’t in a position to front that much money. And here I am a young engineer. I didn’t understand all the possibilities to meet with investors, to perhaps fund this. And I did continue selling them, sold all the products I had, even though I didn’t have insurance. And you know, one way to protect myself by the way was to incorporate. And then after they all sold out, I ended up keeping five because I still do triathlons and I need to wear this thing, but it’s something that I need to resurrect the company that was manufacturing, the injection molded parts for me, went out of business and all the tooling was lost. And here it is now some 35, 40 years later as a retiree. I am , I think to myself, I need to resurrect this thing because there’s an even bigger need for it. Now with all the new water sports that have been invented besides triathlons, which still go on, they have long distance swimming. They have now kiteboarding, they have this , uh , paddleboarding and all these things require you to be able to move your arms and legs freely the hydro belt and need to resurrect a product and get that thing back out there. Because it’s really a wonderful thing for anybody from a child up to an adult who is into water or near the water or onto water. James Di Virgilio: 23:38 Well, if you’re interested in the hydro belt, you can certainly contact Mark Supal. He is the chief technology officer at Engineering Technologies, LLC, creator of a bunch of interesting things. You can visit his website. You can get in touch with Mark. You can connect with him on LinkedIn. He is also right now a finalist for the Cade Prize, which of course does reward inventors like Mark creative problem solvers. Mark. It’s been wonderful having you on the program today. Thank you so much for being with us. Mark Supal: 24:05 Oh, well thank you for the opportunity here . And I hope that we can solve this problem by, like I said, there are so many problems that even the lay person can tackle. People don’t realize how simple it is to invent and just be very perseverant in your ability to actually to make something and put it together. It’s not that difficult to do so I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Outro: 24:26 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida . This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists, Jacob Lawson .

Adam Kinsey is the founder of Verigo, a technology that uses smart sensors to track and monitor fresh produce during its journey from farm to truck to warehouse to store to table. New technology like RFID chips has gotten dramatically cheaper, making the business model viable. A former engineer at Texas Instruments, Adam saw a new communications platform there that he knew could be adapted for fresh produce supply chains. A year later, no one else had adapted the technology, so Adam jumped in. “It was boldness or stupidity,” he says, that motivated him to enter a market he knew nothing about. *This episode was originally released on October 16, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade and podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:36Can the internet get me some fresh strawberries? Apparently, yes. If you can track them and integrate the information into global supply chains here to tell me how that works is Adam Kinsey. The founder of Verigo a company that does just that. Welcome Radio Cade, Adam. Adam Kinsey: 0:49Thank you, Richard. Thanks for having me. Richard Miles: 0:51So Adam, most of our listeners probably know or have heard about the internet of things, but in case we’ve got some late adopters out there among our listeners. Tell me in general, what is the internet of things? And you can describe for me what Verigo’s technology is. Adam Kinsey: 1:07The internet of things is a buzzword that spawned probably 15, 20 years ago. Now it’s the idea that we have complex systems in the world, whether it’s a building and that building has an HVAC system and a water system and all of the systems in that building historically, you’d have to have a technician go and look at each system one by one to manage that building IOT says, let’s put sensors on each of those sub systems. Let’s put wireless communications on them and let that building talk to you. IOT and related to buildings would be a smart building system, but it also can be applied to things that are in motion. So our specific areas, perishable supply chain, when you’re shipping thousands of truckload, shipping containers, aircraft loaded with pallets of cargo, same type of problems of important, valuable products that are in motion, and you need to be able to manage them in that supply chain. And so IOT in the supply chain is let’s put smart sensors and communications on each of those packages for each of those shipments and let them collect intelligence about themselves and talk to you while they’re in motion. So you can effectively manage the entire supply chain and all the products in it. Richard Miles: 2:16And so what has made that easier right, is a couple of breakthroughs in technology. And it used to be early computer age days, but the idea of putting some sort of physical sensor on a machine part right away was probably overwhelmed by cost considerations and ability of that sensor to talk to other sensors and so on what has happened that has made the ability for things to talk to other things cheaper, faster, more reliable. Adam Kinsey: 2:41What has caused the internet of things, quote, unquote, to grow so rapidly has been the development of new technologies like RFID, come on the scene that now makes it possible to make something smart for something on the order of pennies. Instead of having sort of a dollars. Richard Miles: 2:54And for those who don’t know RFID, right? Have this are like tiny little chips that can be physically put on a piece of clothing, a pallet of fruit or anything. And essentially we’ll then talk to a sensor nearby. Right? Adam Kinsey: 3:07The basic concept of RFID is we’re all used to seeing a barcode on each product we buy, but a barcode requires you to look at it and you have to have line of sight to it, to identify it. RFID says let’s take that barcode and let’s turn it into a tiny little chip that’s size of a few grains of rice that is wireless. And now I can read that from meters or even hundreds of meters away. Richard Miles: 3:27And cheap as well right? I mean, cheap to manufacture cheap, to attach to whatever you’re trying to track. Okay, let’s drill down now Verigo specifically. Where did you get the idea? Is this somebody else’s idea? And then how does it work? What system existed before to track produce? Obviously people have been tracking produce for awhile, but what came before and how does this change the game? Adam Kinsey: 3:48This is not a new idea, right? Tracking produce has been around. So then it’s the novelty of this idea is really in this implementation and which technology we use and how we did it. So let’s walk into history a bit. It has been since probably the year, 2000 become more and more standard to monitor trucks. So if truck is driving down the road, that truck is talking to headquarters and they can see where it is and see kind of what the status is of that truck. The challenge of that is if you’re shipping a lettuce from a farm in California to a grocery store in Florida, that lettuce is actually on quite a few different trucks, so great. You can see truck one carrying that lettuce. And then later on you can see truck two carrying that lettuce. And then later on you can see truck three, but you actually can’t ever see the lettuce or what happened to it along the way. Richard Miles: 4:33And some spots has been stored in the warehouse for hours or days. Adam Kinsey: 4:37Yeah. Often it stays. So where the inception of my idea came from I, when I was an undergraduate, I volunteered for a joint project with the UF Packaging department and UF Electrical Engineering department and they were working with fresh seafood suppliers, struggling with the same challenges. How do we get fresh seafood to market? And they were using a number of technologies to look at how do we reduce the waste, trying to get fresh seafood in from Chile. Actually, what they were working on doing was instead of monitoring at the truck level, can we now for the first time monitor the actual units of product, let’s move that level of granularity down to the individual unit of product. And that really had not been done before. It’s really challenging to move from monitoring 40,000 pounds of product to now monitoring a much greater volume of things like having all of the pallets and the supply chain talk to you. It’s a major technical challenge make that feasible at the right price point and to be able to handle all that data reliably. So the innovation that led to Verigo was really simple. It wasn’t our innovation. It was, I was working at Texas instruments in Dallas, in 2011, and I saw the release of this new wireless protocol. It really wasn’t necessarily designed in itself for the supply chain, but it had a number of characteristics that made it perfect for this exact application for monitoring salmon. And so I came back and started PhD, UF and I was expecting a number of companies, see this new communications platform and use it to help solve this problem. And a year later, no one had, so I said, well, I had done my own research otherwise and decided to build a system to accomplish this goal, using this new communications platform. Richard Miles: 6:11Now at this point, Adam, did you know anything about supply chains? Cause you were trained primarily as an engineer, right? Adam Kinsey: 6:17That’s correct. Richard Miles: 6:18Electrical engineer. Right? So supply chains is a whole other sort of science, right? Even it’s a fairly sophisticated, complicated science. What gave you the idea to plunge into an area in which I’m sure at least one person said you don’t know what you’re doing or maybe more, I don’t know. Adam Kinsey: 6:33I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Um, but I felt that in working on that one project, I had gotten to see some firsthand exposure to this place. And I’d gone into warehouses, I’d talked to truck drivers, I’d gotten some, Richard Miles: 6:43This is at TI Texas Instruments? Adam Kinsey: 6:45Um no this is actually with University of Florida with that resource project. Okay. So I had gotten a brief taste of the supply chain and what it looked like. I would say it was simply boldness and or stupidity that caused me to go and make the decision to enter this industry that I really honestly didn’t know much about, but I learned along the way trial by fire. Richard Miles: 7:04So let’s talk about that. Some, because it’s a fairly common story that we hear on Radio Cade and other places through the Cade Prize and so on. And it’s a story of an idea. That’s a good idea. And it’s a workable idea. So the idea has to sort of improve at some level and then the transition from that to the marketplace. Right? And so what happens a lot is the original inventor or the technical person thinks, well, I’ve got a good idea and it works. It’s basically going to sell itself. And then they discovered doesn’t sell itself. What were some of the early surprises as you thought? Okay, I have a great concept. I think it’s going to work. The market’s going to love this idea. What were some of the challenges moving from that stage to where you eventually ended up? It became widely adopted in relatively short period of time. So tell us what that was for Verigo. Adam Kinsey: 7:50So we started out with a very grand vision, which was, I saw an incredible amount of waste in the supply chain and wanting to prevent about 40% of the food that is thrown away. So in today’s fresh produce supply chain, about 10% of all fresh produce is thrown away before it even has a chance to be sold. So that’s after it leaves the farm between that point and now enters the supply chain between there and it being put on a shelf in Publix for you to buy 10% of it goes to waste in some ways that’s fantastic. That means 90% of the stuff coming in comes out, which is better than it’s ever been in history, but it’s still a huge opportunity to prevent waste $30 billion of fresh food waste in the world today that could be prevented. And about 50% of that can be prevented through systems like ours. So we started out with that huge idea and you can’t start with an idea that big in a reasonable amount of time. So a year and a half is enough time to build a product that worked and to get out and get that first taste of implementing it. Those first trial customers to put it in practice in the supply chain. And we learned this was too big as a first step. And so there were some hard conversations and we said, what we have to do is start smaller, narrow the scope of what we’re trying to do. We can still take the same technology platform, but let’s just pick one facet of it for one type of product and solve that for us. Richard Miles: 9:14So allow me to ask some before that, did you look at the entire produce market and say we’re going to solve all these problems? Is that when you say that your scope is too big? Adam Kinsey: 9:22Yeah. The scope that was too big it was, we were trying to monitor all the way from the farmer’s field to the in grocery stores and the retailer. If you’re monitoring that entire process, you’re actually monitoring the process of usually three different companies. Okay. So there’s three different entities that would have to adopt the platform, use it and work together. Richard Miles: 9:40Three different deals, all three that have to happen at the same time. Adam Kinsey: 9:44Okay. And that’s not feasible as a place to start. Right. So as a place to start, we’d narrowed our focus and said, let’s look at that last part of the supply chain. And in fact, let’s find those companies that have very valuable and very perishable products where they already have some monitoring in place, but they want a better solution. And so that’s where we started. Richard Miles: 10:04And sorry I heard you describing earlier the system that existed before Verigo was essentially some guy in a warehouse with a clipboard. Right. But it shipment would come in and whatever it is, lettuce, tomato, salmon, and to sort of eyeball and like, yeah, that looks fine. And it doesn’t look fine when you went to these companies, that’s what they had or was they had a few things better than that? Adam Kinsey: 10:23When you’re looking at the problem of food waste, it’s that quality inspector at the warehouse receiving dock who is performing the job, that visual inspection, the physical inspection of some sample of that load, that guides that decision making process of, can I accept this load? Can I bring this lettuce into my warehouse and then continue to ship it along? How long can I store it in my warehouse? And can I ship this another 2000 miles? Those three questions ultimately are all being answered by that guy doing that inspection. There are also wired monitoring technologies. Each truck comes in and hopefully it’s going to have a recording thermometer in it that if they choose, they can take it out of the truck, bring it over to their computer and then see what the temperatures were in that truck, retrieving that recording thermometer and downloading that data was somewhat unwieldy process. So most guys just didn’t do it. Those things were ignored, but that was an existing market that we were able to go into and find those companies using those recording devices and say, you’re paying for these things. And everyone in practices ignoring them by one that is much easier to use. And that provides the information much quicker. So the guy on the warehouse actually wants to use it right, and upgrade to our technology. And so that was our first entrance into the marketplace. Richard Miles: 11:31Let’s talk a little bit about other applications of the underlying technology like this tracking. Are there other applications out there? I remember reading, I think it was with clothing. The costs had gotten so low. There’s not feasible to track individual sweaters or blouses, not, not for shipping, but for inventory. Right? How many do you have in your store? Are there things out there that are being developed that are going to transform dramatically improve the efficiency in other industries in the same general description of tracking? Adam Kinsey: 11:57That wireless communications protocol that I got so excited about. And that was one of the first tech advances that was an enabling technology to do what we did. That progression hasn’t stopped right? There are now even newer and better wireless communication protocols that are going to make it possible to monitor even far more, just to narrow it down and clarify what we focused on, where those products, where you need to know more than just that they are there. We were actually instrumenting there’s temperatures, humidity, accelerometer type sensors that were going into that shipment. So you could record what was its temperature, what humidity was exposed to, was it dropped what kind of vibration did it experience. And so it could not only tell you that it was there like a shirt is an inventory, right? It could tell you what its current condition is. What’s the health of that product. And so we focused on things that were perishable and that were reasonably high value. And today there’s some really exciting technologies. Let’s list a couple of them, long range, wireless technologies like LoRa and Sigfox or two of them. And then even with 5G is coming the next cell phone vertical, there are some incredible things coming down the pike that are going to make it even easier for all of those products in the world in supply chains, to be smart and to be providing real time intelligence to the operators of the supply chain. Richard Miles: 13:12Because in theory, if that infrastructure exists to capture the signal that they’re admitting, right, they could be anywhere, almost any condition in it and sending out the information. Whereas now it would depend on infrastructure and that factory or the company that’s receiving it to pull that information for RFID chips are, Adam Kinsey: 13:29Exactly.The big challenge has been, we have great infrastructure for cell phones are everywhere. The problem is can you afford to put a cell phone on a pallet of lettuce? So what they’re doing now is releasing technologies that are going to be on every cell tower in the world. And they’re going to be incredibly cheap. Now they’re lowering that cost and lowering that barrier so that now the pellet of lettuce can afford to talk to you. Richard Miles: 13:54All right. This is part of the show. Now Adam, where we talk a little bit about you, tell us a little bit about yourself, your childhood, or sort of pre academic life. What sort of shaped you or what, what didn’t shape you. Adam Kinsey: 14:05So yeah, I was a son of an air force pilot. So we moved around quite a bit to have moved quite a bit as a child, I think makes you a little bit more self sufficient and self-reliant was it beneficial characteristic to have when coming into being an entrepreneur, being willing to accept risk and new things and take chances. As a child I would say I had a wide variety of interests. There was one passion that has was and still is aviation. I love aircraft in all forms. And as a kid, I was always designing, building and flying model airplanes. So that was my biggest hobby as a child. And it turns out to build Muller planes. They have all sorts of electronics in them. You’re playing with motors and soldering wires and working with all electronics and the radios, transmitters and receivers to make them fly. And eventually it started to become fascinated with how do all those work and wanting to learn more about that technology that made it possible for me to have my hobby and fly those airplanes around the sky. So that was the catalyst for me to get into electrical and electronics engineering. Richard Miles: 14:55Did you consider being a pilot at all? Following in your father’s footsteps? Adam Kinsey: 14:58I certainly did. Yeah. And actually I finally fulfilled that goal last year, private pilot’s license. So I now finally am a pilot, but I did consider it, but I loved building things too much. The quintessential engineer, the folks that are always tinkering and building. And I enjoyed that too much. Richard Miles: 15:13Were you a good student in school? Do you remember doing well and things like math and science? Adam Kinsey: 15:18Pretty good student at math and science and was a pretty good student. Just barely good enough to go to the university of Florida. Richard Miles: 15:24Okay. And this is now your opportunities for dispense a little bit of the wisdom. What sort of advice would you give to someone maybe just graduating from college now? Are there things you wish you had known when you were say 21, 22 that you know, now that would have been mighty useful a few years ago? Adam Kinsey: 15:41Hindsight is always 2020, of course. And so you never know really what you’re getting into. And to be honest, if I had known, I probably would not have taken this path. Right? But that doesn’t mean it was the wrong choice and I’m very happy that I took this path and I started this company and had a chance to sell it to a publicly traded company and see our solution adopted around the world. I mean, there’s just, it’s an incredible blessing to get, to be a part of that and to experience that. As far as what I wish I would have known it wouldn’t have changed the decisions that I made. I don’t think I would say the first thing you have to believe in yourself and you have to know that this goal can be accomplished, but there also needs to be a pragmatic side of you that says it’s also possible that situation’s totally outside of my control could cause me to not accomplish this goal. If that comes to fruition, you’re not destroyed. There’s a lot of entrepreneurs that struggle when things don’t go their way, it can lead down a very dark road. Just think it’s very important before starting any company or entrepreneurial venture is know that the goal absolutely is achievable, but even if I fail or don’t achieve that goal, this is something I want to have done anyway, this is the right thing to do. I believe that this product needs to exist or this problem needs to be solved, but accomplishing the goal is certainly not a given. And you need to go in with that understanding and be okay with it either way. The biggest learning that I had in this process was the scope and scale of this problem. You know, I was 21 years old when I started this company. So it was very young and very inexperienced still am, frankly, there are certain dynamics of problems that you want to solve. The technology never solves the problem. It can be the key factor that makes it possible for that problem to be solved. But ultimately the industry has to adopt a solution. The customer has to want to change their behaviors, use the technology, to enable them to change the behaviors and get the outcome and dealing with industrial companies and dealing with regulated industries. The pace of change can be very slow and slow and the rate of adoption can be really slow. And it’s not that they won’t adopt it. You’re wrong in your assumption that this problem needs to be solved in this can do it. It’s just, it was normal and average for our sales cycle to be one year from the time we were introduced to a client to first sale and in the worst case, it was three years. So that’s how it works. That’s not wrong for a startup. Richard Miles: 17:56An entrepreneur in which you, you measure things in like five minute increments, right? It’s like talking to someone who lives in dog years. You know, you’re making decisions every single day. Adam Kinsey: 18:07It’s important going into your startup venture to understand that industry you’re going into, we did not at the time. We adjusted, we found other kinds of clients. We were nimble. If you can accept those sorts of things upfront and include them into your plan, you can take a few less jogs along your path. Richard Miles: 18:24It’s the search for a balance because on one hand, as an entrepreneur, you have to be flexible. You have to pivot, you have to listen to the market. You have to listen to investors. You have to listen to your board and so on. But on the other hand, there is a component which you need to really stand firm and hold onto that original insight, original idea. And the problem is as an entrepreneur is where is that dividing line? Where’s that balanced? So I think you can’t totally surrender, right? As you’ve probably discovered to what the market even tells you or what a investors tell you, do this, do that. But in the end of the hand, your dad, pretty soon, if you don’t adapt and flexible and so on. Adam Kinsey: 18:58And what you can do is take the big vision and break it down into a much smaller goal that is not accomplishing maybe the bigger, longer term goal, but it is certainly a step in that direction. So it might be a step slightly off the path or the original path, but it’s still getting ya towards the end goal. And so those pivots absolutely have to happen. And we did them as well. You do have to be nimble while always keeping your eye on where am I trying to end up. Richard Miles: 19:23Had a great conversation, thank you very much for coming on Radio Cade, wish you the best of luck. Hope to have you back on here with your latest and greatest invention. I’m sure at your age, you still got plenty of good ideas left and it’s been a great conversation. Adam Kinsey: 19:36It’s been great to be here.Thank you so much, Richard. Richard Miles: 19:37I’m Richard Miles Outro: 19:40Radio Cade, would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and inventor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song featuring violinist, Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

How does the brain change itself, and can those changes be passed on to the next generation? ‘Yes’ and ‘yes’ according to Dr. Bryan Kolb, a neuroscientist at the University of Lethbridge, author of a classic neuropsychology textbook and a recipient of Canada’s highest civilian honor. Listen in to learn about brain plasticity as well as epigenetics, the science of how genes flip on and off and can be inherited in their new state. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:38 Brain plasticity, and epigenetics. What do those terms mean? And why do they matter? I’m your host Richard Miles, and I’m very pleased to welcome a very distinguished guest, Dr. Bryan Kolb neuroscientist at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, the author of numerous books and articles on neuropsychology and the recipient of the order of Canada, Canada’s highest, Civilian honor. Welcome to Radio Cade Bryan. Bryan Kolb: 0:59 Thank you. Richard Miles: 1:01 Bryan. I read somewhere that your groundbreaking textbook Fundamentals of Neuropsychology, is the most stolen book in England. What is up with that? Bryan Kolb: 1:08 Well, apparently it’s true. It’s stolen form libraries that obviously doesn’t happen in Canada or the U.S. People buy the book. We had a heck of a time getting it published in the late 1970s, because nobody believed there was such a field and it turns out there is and the book did very well. Richard Miles: 1:24 For an author obviously an author would like to get paid on the sales, but to have your book stolen probably better than your book being dropped off at used bookstores. But let’s talk about that. The book itself was very important because it was pathbreaking breaking . It’s published in , I think in 1980. And you talked about brain plasticity, not just that, but that was one of the fundamental things. And basically your definition, I believe is the ability of the brain to reorganize its structure, function and connections in response to experiences. So why don’t you sort of walk our listeners through, what does that mean? How can we think about brain plasticity in a useful way? Bryan Kolb: 2:01 If you imagine being born into the world, the brain has no idea what world its going to be, could be in Alaska? It could be at the equator. You could be in Africa. And so the brain biologically needs to be able to change itself, to adapt to the environment that it’s in. That’s sort of the background as to why evolution would have done this. It’s not just true of us. It’s true in worms. So all animals have this capacity to change their brain response to the environment that they find themselves in. And of course, if your listeners would learn anything from this discussion today, we have to change their brains. Somehow distorted material, the brain has to change. It’s just not magic. Richard Miles: 2:39 So If I understand this correctly and we’re not stuck with the brain were born with right? Basically from the minute we’re born, the brain is constantly reshaping itself. Give me a magnitude of the degree to what we’re talking about. Is it just a little bit that the brain sort of prunes a few neurons here and there and adds , or how dramatic is it? Say we take a , a new born and we look at them when they’re one year old or five years old or 12 years old, what kind of changes have occurred in the interim in terms of the brain changing itself? Bryan Kolb: 3:11 So they, the changes are not small there quite dramatic. So when we’re born, we have twice as many neurons as we’re going to need. Twice as many as we have now, which seems a little odd. And then over the next couple of years, we make connections at an enormous rate. And we ended up with far more connections than we need. And so around age two, we start getting rid of them. And depending on which part of the brain we’re looking at, it’s going to begin around to other regions. The higher levels of cognition is later. Let’s say, we’re starting to lose the frontal connections and neurons around age five. We will lose half of them and at the beginning of adolescents or puberty the rate we lose them at is remarkable. It’s about a hundred thousand connections per second. It’s a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand. So if you think about 13 year old girls, they are not the easiest group to deal with because their brain is changing so fast. The kids of course are inventing themselves at that age. They’re becoming who they’re going to be. And what that means is they’re creating the brain of the environment that they’re headed into. So if you look at a one year old, the one year old still doesn’t really know what the environment’s going to be certainly is growing connections. The neurons aren’t being born or not many, any longer. And then as the child begins to adapt to the environment that it’s in, whatever that happens to be, then it starts to change. So if you think about language, if you imagine a child who’s born in a house, or a home that speaks Japanese or Korean, they’re not going to hear the sounds L or R. But they can discriminate those sounds when they’re six months old, but as time goes on, they start losing the ability to make those sound discriminations . And so as an adult, they have this difficulty discriminating, L and R. Similarly, if we’re born in a house that speaks English, there are sounds that other languages that we simply cannot discriminate once we’re adults, because we lose that ability. So the brain is getting rid of things it’s not going to use, getting rid of connections that are not necessary. Now, one question you could ask is what happens if you don’t get rid of these connections? What happens if you keep them all? And the answer is cognitive disabilities. So children who do not lose a lot of these connections, cognitively are impaired. So we historically would have called them retarded. We don’t any longer, but that’s basically what it is. Richard Miles: 5:34 I remember watching one of your talks. And you talked about language and it was somewhat similar to when you buy like a new Apple product that’s sold all over the world and you see it installing the files. It installs with all sorts of Russian and Japanese and Portuguese, I guess, to make your keyboard compatible or something like that. Is that sort of what we’re talking about, that a newborn has basically all of this software loaded to do lots of different things, but based on the environment, they’re not going to need all that. And what I found was fascinating is that it’s counterintuitive that that loaded up brain, I guess, is somewhat of a disadvantage and that you want to sort of prune or make it more efficient. Is that more or less accurate? Bryan Kolb: 6:14 That’s a wonderful analogy. Yeah, that’s exactly right. I’m going to use that in the future. Yeah. That’s, it’s fully loaded, ready to go, but it’s not efficient. And so if we can make things more efficient, then we’re going to have a greater cognitive capacity. Richard Miles: 6:29 Well, good. I’m glad I got the analogy, right . I’ve had guests where I rolled out an analogy and they, and they said , no, that’s completely wrong. Okay. Well, I clearly didn’t understand the concept. So we’ve described plasticity the ability of the brain to change itself. And you’ve also done a lot on something called epigenetics. So before we go into the implications, all this, certainly from an educational perspective, why don’t you also define what epigenetics is? So that way we can talk it both in the same conversation. Bryan Kolb: 6:57 Sure. So if you look at any cell in the body, it has the same DNA. So cells that make your skin and your bones, your eyes, your brain all have the same DNA, yet the cells are different. And so the question is, why are they different? Well, they’re different because different genes are turned on and different genes are turned off. So the idea of epigenetics is that gene expression, the turning on or turning off of genes is regulated by experience, by things that are going on around us. And those things could be inside us or those things could be outside of us. So the idea is that if you’re going to change the brain, if you’re going to have plastic changes, the changes are going to result from changes in the activity of genes. This activity of genes is affected by experience. And so the idea of epigenetics is that we have a certain experience that might be a stressful event. It might be a wonderful event, might be a drug who knows what it is, but those things will change the expression of genes, which changes creation of proteins, manufacturer proteins and so on in the body or in grand (inaudible). Richard Miles: 7:59 So this is really a revolutionary insight because I think prior to this, you’ve had this debate for centuries about nature versus nurture, right? What you’re born with, what you inherit as part of your genes and then your environment and all of your experiences, whether that’s the way you were raised or the way you’re educated or whatever happens to you that shapes you. But this seems to imply that it’s not just a mix of those two, they’re actually together in the form that your experiences can make you well, why don’t you explain it particularly with the role of the father, which that’s really, really fascinating that these changes occur even before somebody essentially is conceived. Bryan Kolb: 8:38 That’s right in fact, it’s paradoxical. It seems at first that the father could have a bigger influence on the gene expression of the offspring than the mom. But it’s related to the fact that the changes in gene expression can be transmitted by the sperm. So the idea here is that if you take the father, who’s had some sort of stressful event, maybe was a soldier in Iraq or something, just a horrible experience. That’s going to change the gene expression in the sperm of the dad, which as a result is going to change the way in which the developing brain or his offspring is going to progress. It’s true that the mom has also evolved but her eggs don’t change. So the eggs that she is born with that will eventually be used to create babies. They don’t change. They’re not changed by experiences, but the sperm is, cause the sperm dies every 40 days or so when you create new sperm. And so that new sperm is being affected by the experiences that the dad has had. That means that the same dad could have a different kind of gene expression transmitted to different children, depending on the experiences that they’ve had in the previous two or three months or maybe longer. So that’s the idea there, and these changes can cross generations or can be shown in the grandchildren. Maybe the great grandchildren who knows defect gets much smaller over time. So if you have your daughter or your son and they have experiences too, and so it’s going to affect change expression. And so the influence of that event, that the father had pre conceptually to you, is going to start decreasing, but nonetheless, there is a footprint of it there. If you go back to this idea that epigenetics, if you remember, there was a scientist called Lamarck. Lamarck believed there was, that genes could learn essentially that learning, could it be transmitted from generation to generation. And people thought decided this was crazy. It’s not like that. Well, it turns out he was correct. He didn’t know the mechanism, but in fact it looks like that’s, what’s actually happening. So you’re right. Nature and nurture are working together, back and forth, back and forth. Richard Miles: 10:38 So just so I understand this correctly, Bryan, I can’t change my own DNA. I’m stuck with my DNA and not all genes can switch on or off. Right. You’re only talking about a certain subset of genes or do all, all genes, have the ability to essentially be turned on or turned off. Bryan Kolb: 10:55 I don’t know the answer to that, but my guess is that most of the ability to be turned on or turned off. But I imagine some can’t. Good question. Richard Miles: 11:03 You talked about the example of PTSD from someone in Iraq or war zone. I assume that also goes the other direction. For instance, if I inherited the DNA of being a very good baseball player, for instance, and then I became a great baseball player, I hit the major leagues, the likelihood, then that say my kids would inherit , that ability are now much greater, right? Because I’ve done that gene for pitching or catching or whatever I’ll ask you. Does that explain why you often see sports stars? You know, fathers and sons who are in the major leagues, whether it’s baseball or hockey or football at a rate that would be implausible, unless there’s some sort of genetic connection, right? Bryan Kolb: 11:42 Correct. We should make it clear that there’s not a gene we’re talking about multiple genes. Nothing is, it’s usually aging, the odd diseases for the most part. That’s not the case, but yeah, that would be why you get somebody like Gordie Howe and his three sons, all playing pro hockey at the same time. Richard Miles: 11:58 I always felt a little bit, sorry for maybe the one kid that didn’t get it. Right? Like there’s no Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. And I think their father was a famous quarterback as well. Right. But there’s one son that doesn’t have it. So I’ve always wondered what his Thanksgiving dinner is like at those households. Okay. So Bryan, I think I’ve got it. And I hope our listeners have got it that basically brain plasticity brain can and does change itself a lot, but there are certain windows, right? So it’s not like a continuous process that every year your brain either grows a certain number of neurons or loses them. There are windows in which that’s sort of concentrated and that your research and other people’s have found has a tremendous influence on particular education. And then everything that sort of flows from good or bad education, a lot of life outcomes are going to stem from whether you were well-educated or did well in school or , or not. So why don’t you talk a little bit about what research has shown is the correlation between those windows of brain development and future outcomes? Bryan Kolb: 13:00 Well, the earliest window obviously is the prenatal window, but the first one to three years is a window of a lot of change. Then a period it’s not quite as soon, but it’s not changing as much until the onset of puberty. And then we have this period in adolescence of huge change. Now we used to think that the brain was pretty much finished developing by about age 18, but it’s not. And so it continues on into the third decade. And so we’re looking at changes going up to say 30, 32, depending on whether you’re a man or a woman. If you ask people who are say over 40 or 50, when they became who they are, most people would say somewhere around 30, clearly there are changes that when we look back on. We can see what are going on for a long time. Then we have a reduction in plasticity, but mercifully it doesn’t stop. So that even at my age, I’m 72, I can still learn things. I don’t learn them as quickly as my grandchildren unfortunately, but I can still learn things. The brain is still plastic . However, there are disorders which the plasticity really does decline like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and other demanding diseases where we now see that the brain really isn’t changing very easily. But for most people the changes can continue on into senescence, but at a very much, much slower rate, for sure. So we have these two windows one shortly after birth and the other one in early adolescence in particular. The second one’s really important because we’re worrying about kids experimenting with drugs when they’re 13, 14, when the brain is really changing. One of the things that Terry Robinson and I discovered about 20 years ago was that every psychoactive drug that you take actually produces permanent changes in the structure of neurons. And those changes that occur with kids who are experiencing with drugs have different consequences than they do with you, or me, particularly cannabis is a worry investigating the effects of cannabis at age 13, 14, 15, the effects can actually be dramatic in the twenties with respect to mental health and so on. So that’s a big worry about plasticity. There’s something that’s pathological. I just want to throw one other thing in here. That is, if you have an idea and you can remember the idea, it means that you changed your own brain, but that idea has changed the brain, which is you think about it quite remarkable, but that’s the only way you can remember it. Richard Miles: 15:20 One of the things we talk about at the Cade Museum, particularly with regards to education is the value of interactive experience that a lot of inventors, a lot of entrepreneurs often don’t do well, or haven’t done well on a classic school system. They have sort of different experiences and what I found fascinating, about one of the things that I saw you talk about was the language development skills in the first 18 months of life. And that it’s not enough to be simply exposed, to say a large vocabulary passively. You really have to get in the rhythm of being able to have a conversation in a given take away. And that has profound differences or profound outcomes on how somebody does later in life. So can you explain how exactly that works and what the research shows about those differences? Bryan Kolb: 16:08 You know , one of the metaphors we use here is serve and return. So the idea is that if you are passively listening to the language, whether it’s on TV or the radio or whatever artist in the background, you’re not actually actively engaged socially with the center of that information, but you need to be. So if I say something to you and your child, and then you respond, that’s the serve and return idea. There’s a really nice experiment, trying to teach kids. I believe it was Japanese, but it was not English, English, speaking kids. And they either saw this woman trying to teach them on TV. Or she was in the TV, the old kind of TVs , where there was a big Catholic retreat . So she’s actually there see woman , but she can actually serve and return with the kids in the one case and in the other she can’t. And I guess which kids learn Japanese, the ones who actually have the personal interaction. So the social support, the social interaction is really critical to the plastic changes in the brain. Richard Miles: 17:05 So I guess one question really is we’re recording this and then, you know, the middle of 2020 in the midst of the 19 sort of lockdown , what that means for education and schooling. Is there anything to suggest that a serve and return as you call it style online is just as effective or less effective than face to face? Because obviously there’s a whole bunch of other types of communication that go on between people face to face the visual cues and facial cues does a lot of that get lost during an online experience or the fact that you can actually talk to and be taught from somebody online. Is that good enough? Bryan Kolb: 17:41 It’s a really good question. And I’m sure there are people studying that as a professor who is going to have to be online. These students their not going to be on my screen. I won’t be able to see them. That’s impossible on Zoom to do that. And so are they going to get the same education? I doubt that, but if it’s two people as you and I are an hour on screen, I suspect that we’re going to get a lot of the serve and return affects whether children can be engaged in the same way as empirical question that I’m sure that many developmental psychologists are studying right now. It’s , it’s a really, really good question. Richard Miles: 18:15 One of the things I really want to ask you about is it seems like the most important window. If I understand your research correctly is that sort of first 18 months were certainly the absence of direct communication with an infant is really disastrous. And I think it’s from those remaining or some studies and other studies have just shown. It’s just terrible, but there are these other windows later on where you’ve got a window of learning, I guess, let me give you three scenarios and give me your reaction to these three scenarios in terms of what does the research say? If anything, about practical decisions as people trying to sort out scenario number one would be you have a 12 year old and you’re trying to decide, do I have them study music or do sports number two you’re 18 years old. And do you study chemistry or you study history and then number three late in life, you’re , let’s say 56. And should you learn French on Duolingo or just drink Bordeaux all day. Very specific nature. The third scenario it’s asking for a friend, what can you tell us about brain plasticity at those other stages, adolescence early adulthood, and then middle age ? Bryan Kolb: 19:22 Well, one of the most important things that children can do using your, I think it was age 12, piano lessons versus sports is music has a profound influence on how we age. So basically it’s like learning a foreign language. So we know that people who have musical training prior to say age 20 age, better incidence of dementia is much lower. And so on later in life music engages the entire grid. It’s a difficult decision will be, not be in sports because you need the exercise, exercise increases the blood flow into the brain. So you’d want to do both in a sense, but it’s not impossible chemistry versus history. The person in the 20th, the brain is more likely to change in positive ways. If you’re doing things that are interesting, if you’re not engaged, if I’m taking chemistry and I hate it, which was true, but let’s imagine it was, I’m not going to learn it and they’re not going to remember it. So you may be that I was fascinated with European history and I got really engaged in that. So I think it the amount of engagement that’s going to make a difference to how plastic the brain will be. In terms of the 56 year old. I’ve been playing the guitar for over 50 years. When I bought a banjo in 1988 , I never learned to play it. And so I decided this year to learn to play it. And my wife got a new piano. And so she’s taking out the piano. She took piano lessons as a child for 8 or 10 years. And then once she went to vet school and she never play it again, we’ve carted this bloody piano from place to place. So I keeps saying nobody plays it. So now she has luckily a new piano, a little baby grant . She’s taking piano lessons again, she’s close to my age. So we’re both learning to play these instruments. And now we’re playing duets together. It’s really not the Banjo, or the piano, the guitar. It’s really a lot of fun, but the brain clearly can change in the older person. I have to say, the Bordeaux helps make it fun. Richard Miles: 21:13 Well, I have another banjo story, not quite as successful. My wife gave me a banjo about 15 years ago, hoping that I would learn how to play it. I did try to learn, but it turns out we had a friend who really was quite good. And we decided just to give the banjo to him because the, some benefit for humanity would be much better fee on the banjo and not me, but he actually answered the question. I was about to ask how much research has been done, particularly on people in their later years, let’s say 50 or 60 above those who choose to do something new or resurrect something that they used to know how to do well, versus those who don’t. Are there different outcomes in terms of health or cognitive disability? Or what do we know about that stage? Bryan Kolb: 21:52 Yes, there seems to be. And music is one of the ones that looks like really beneficial later in life. You can buy all these games and so on that are supposed to improve your cognition and later life there’s absolutely zero evidence that, that really generalizes to anything music is one thing that does, probably the only other thing that has as big an effect would be learning a new language, which is like learning music and exercise and the exercise again, because of the increased blood flow in the brain and elsewhere in the body. But those three would probably be the most beneficial ones. Richard Miles: 22:22 One of the insights is it . If you do choose to do something later in life, it sounds like it should be something new, right? Rather than doubling down on a skill that you already have and you decide, well, I’m already a good musician. I’m going to be a better musician or I’m a really good whatever I ski well, or I’m going to do better at it. Does that not challenge the brain as much as if you take up something, even an elementary level that you really don’t know how to do, let’s say learn Chinese or learn to play an instrument that you’ve never picked up before. Is that better exercise or better stimulation for the brain at that age? Bryan Kolb: 22:55 I would think so. As long as you’re engaged with it and not frustrated by it, you will do to some extent obviously, but one of my colleagues was saying, well, he’s been playing the guitar for so long and he plays the same music over and over again. I said, you really need to play new music, brother . It’s a different style of music or different materials playing the same songs over and over again, really , isn’t engaging the brain very much. It’s just a motor skill. It’s , it’s a program that comes out and it’s not really changing anything. Richard Miles: 23:21 Bryan, I always like to ask guests about their background, sort of what influences them. And since we are talking about brain plasticity and education and new experiences, can you tell us a little bit about your growing up, your father worked in the oil industry, right. And your mother was a dancer for a while professional dancer. What was it like growing up? What do you remember your early influences and when do you feel your brain changing? Let’s go with that. Bryan Kolb: 23:47 I’m not sure I felt it changing, but I grew up in Calgary and yeah, my dad was in oil business. He liked to say that he went to the University of Turner Valley and people would , oh yeah I’ve heard of that. Well, Turner Valley was the first big oil field in Canada and he was a rough neck prior to the war. And so he never actually went to university because there was no money. He did extremely well in school. He still had his high school marks and he liked to compare those mine . And I didn’t shine compared to his, my mom was a dancer and she would spend a lot of time sort of dancing around the house. I remember, but she was a house flyer . The thing that I kept hearing was you’re going to be the first person in a family to go to university, which I was. And when I went, I didn’t know what the university really was just more school. And I thought, well, maybe I’ll be a lawyer not realizing what lawyers do, well it sounded okay. As I was finishing my first degree, one of my professors asked me what I was going to do. And I said , I had no idea. And he says , well, why don’t you go to graduate school? I didn’t , you know what that was? So he explained it and he says, come with me. He was the Associate Dean of graduate service. He said, fill this form out. And so I did, and I was accepted at the University of Calgary to do master’s work. And I did it in what, at that time, basically it was in animal behavior that I was studying since I’m pretty dumb in 2020, but the learning ability of squirrels and chipmunks and rats and so on comparing them. My mother was convinced this wasn’t my father, particularly this wasn’t going to be a career. So I had become interested in the fact that these animals were so different. Behaviorally had to be related to their brain . So decided to sort of look doing neuroscience, what we now call neuroscience . It didn’t really exist. Then handed off to Penn State and worked with somebody who was one of the leaders in the field, particularly with respect to the frontal lobe , did my PhD with him. Then I went to University of Western Ontario to do a neurophysiology for two years. And then I went to the Montreal Neurological Institute to study humans with brain injuries, surgically induced brain injuries, which was going back to my PhD kind of stuff. And that’s when I discovered neuropsychology and went, you know, there must be a book on this and I would talk to the graduate students and other postdocs and everybody agreed there wasn’t a book. And there was no such course. So I decided to design a course. And when I moved back to Alberta people in the Mcgill that I was nuts to leave Mcgill and go to this little, very new University (inaudible), but it was not far from where I’d grown up. And I just thought, I want to go home to the mountains. I decided, you know, we really need to write a book. Now I was 28 and you know , 28 year olds don’t start fields. They don’t start writing books in the field, but I didn’t know that. And so I convinced my new colleague in which I had to do it with me. So we wrote this book and the rest was history. We were just finishing the eighth edition, which I think will be the last one, 40 years later. So that’s sort of the nutshell of the educational history. Richard Miles: 26:40 So you were 28 when you wrote the book, meaning your brain wasn’t quite done being developed. So that’s probably right . We wrote the book, right? Bryan is, cause you didn’t know any better, but as you said, one final question, you’ve been a pioneer in this field of neuropsychology . What is sort of the next chapter, which does the field look like now? What are your grad students or your young postdoc fellows? What are they working on? Can you give us a sort of sneak peek of what sort of research we might see coming or being published in the next decade or two? Bryan Kolb: 27:08 Sure. So the biggest change in behavioral neuroscience has been the advances in noninvasive imaging. So MRI functional MRI and all the various variations of this. So historically in order to understand how the human brain work, we studied lab animals and we induced and we still do induce injuries in these animals and then see what happens. We measured electrophysiology and so on, but we couldn’t really do to any noninvasive way. I remember when I was at the MNI in 1975, the first CT scan in Canada was installed and the radiologists were going crazy over this cause they could actually see through the skull. In hindsight, it was pretty crappy because it was new, but now it’s fabulous. The MRI can really make a difference to how we study the brain and functional magnetic resonance energy means that we can see the brain in action online. We can see the blood flow moving one place to another as we’re doing things. And so this has really made a difference. So that’s one big difference going to where I think students are going. One of the things we’re doing is we’re trying to do grand rounds presentation to the pediatric neurologist at the University of Calgary children’s hospital. It was mostly on animal work and they wanted me to come and see the kids in intensive care. And I said, well, what’s the standard of care? What do you do with these kids? And basically they said, well, we cool them down for 24 or 48 hours to reduce the inflammation. And then we hand them to the parents and say, good luck. We can do a lot better than that. We can make a program up is based on our animal studies, trying to work with these kids. So tactile stimulation is huge. So tactile stimulation or animal studies, we’ve shown that tactile stimulation produces profound changes in brain. We can really reverse or reduce the effects of early brain injury , the effects of drugs, all kinds of stuff with tactile circulation. So we have a program that just kinda got messed up a bit with COVID, but we’ll resume doing that. We have another program that students are really interested in applications to indigenous communities, where the early experiences are often not very good. The information about brain plasticity is absent for the moms and the dads. They don’t realize that this serve and return is so crucial to language development and cognitive development. So I think there’ll be more and more of this kind of activity. And I think the use of animals is going to go down in large ways. We can use far fewer animals by using imaging techniques in the animals as well. So these are the changes that we’re going to see. And of course this is flows in humans with noninvasive imaging but one of the things we have to remember is that when you’re looking at the noninvasive imaging, the whole brain seems to be involved in everything, but when you damage the brain, it doesn’t look that way. So we still have to keep studying patients to try and get some sense of what the crucial regions are for particular kinds of coordinating activities. Richard Miles: 30:06 Bryan, that is tremendous research that you’ve done and what you’ve sketched out of what’s coming. And the implications I think are really just enormous across, not just the field of education, but a whole bunch of different fields and will impact a lot of the research that’s going on and the application I want to thank you very much for joining me on the show today and stay safe up there in Calgary and hope we can have you back on the show at some point. Bryan Kolb: 30:27 Thank you it’s been fun. Outro: 30:30 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists , Jacob Lawson.

In 1999, Chris Malachowsky was on the team at NVIDIA that invented the Graphics Processing Unit, an invention that transformed the consumer electronics industry. The GPU is now used by video games and virtually all social media platforms. The son of a doctor, Chris started out as pre-med but switched to engineering and got hired by Hewlett Packard. “I never felt we were at risk,” Chris says of his early start-up days. But he cautions early entrepreneurs, “don’t do it for the money or the glory. It’s too hard.” (Mild profanity) *This episode was originally released on November 20, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions, welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio (00:39): For Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio. Our guest today is a 2019 Florida Inventors Hall of Fame, inductee, University of Florida alumnus, and co founder of NVIDIA. His name is Chris Malachowsky. Chris went on to found a fortune 1000 company that invented the Graphics Processing Unit, which for me was a large part of my life and had a big introduction to video games. But that unit did much larger things than that. It’s now used by Facebook, Twitter, Google, super computers, a whole host of other things. And in fact, Chris and his cofounders transformed the visual computing industry by creating a consumer oriented 3D graphics market. Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. I’m looking forward to hearing about your story. As we spoke off air, your story is like so many other inventors and entrepreneurs stories and that it does not move in a straight predictable line. Tell us how your story began. Chris Malachowsky (01:34): Well, I was a kid about to get in trouble in New Jersey and, uh, wanted to graduate early, before I succumb to the wildly ways with my friends and knew I wanted to get out of New Jersey. It was middle of winter it’s slushy, it’s cold, it’s dreary. And my father was a physician. My parents and their friends all assumed I was to be a doctor. I like carpentry and cabinet making and, and thought that was the path I wanted, but didn’t really think I needed to make up my mind. So what I did decide was warm and green was the criteria for school. If they had a medical school and a building construction school, I could decide later, let me just get on with my life, get out of New Jersey. And so I applied to Tulane, they had a really pretty lawn and sunny scene on the cover of their catalog thought that was attractive. They had a medical school on a building construction school done, I flied, and got in. My parents were a little gas that I wasn’t giving myself more options and that maybe I should at least see the school. So my older brother was given my parents’ car and him and I drove off to Tulane. And after being there for a couple of days, I really didn’t think that was going to work out for me. I was going to get myself in some serious trouble in the French Quarter. So on the way home I was dismayed because I did not give myself any options. I stopped, to see a cousin who was going to University of Florida. I spent a couple of days there and really did like it. And it also had the same characteristics of building construction school and a medical school. And I decided this is cool. So I picked up an application and on the way, driving home to New Jersey, I filled it out, mailed it in, got in. And I guess the rest is history that brought me to that Florida. James Di Virgilio (03:07): Now tell me about your experience in college and then how your life became what it became, because I’m going to love, I know before I even hear what you’re going to say, how life is so much more unplanned than we ever think. And I’m looking forward to hearing how those dots connect. Chris Malachowsky (03:22): Yeah. So at Florida, you didn’t really have to declare a major. So I started off doing all the normal general ed stuff with an idea that I was premed. And I remember going to see the premed advisor who was very clear. And I went with one of my roommates. This is maybe as a sophomore and the guy looks me square in the eye and says, so who have you helped lately? I said excuse me, it’s just, you want to be a doctor? I mean, come on, everybody wants to be a doctor, a lawyer what’s this about? He says, don’t even tell me your father was a doctor or a lawyer. And the other kid’s father was a lawyer. My father was a doctor. He says, you know, what discipline are you going to choose? And I said, well, I was thinking of engineering. And my roommate said, you’re not gonna make that. I mean, you just might as well go home. We walked out of that advisor’s office and I’m like crying. My roommate’s like he’s talking about me. And it turned out, it was really just a challenge. And fast forward, three years later, whatever I’m graduating, I’m getting ready to graduate. I’m going to take the medical school entrance exam, which was in like May and graduations like June or maybe was April, May something along those lines. And you’re supposed to study very hard and be very rested because after the morning sessions, that all day thing after the morning session, your grade is supposed to drop considerably in the second half. You’re exhausted. You’re tired. So I remember going to the Shands teaching hospital in Gainesville and I take the first part of the test and I’d stayed over one of the quarter breaks to study. And I had a lot to remember, cause I had electrical engineering as the way I was getting into a medical school. You had to pick something. And I got an A in that section of physics, it sounded like, why not? Didn’t really have any love for it, but apparently I was good at it. So I’m laying on the picnic table in the Florida sun, trying to relax between the morning session and the afternoon session. And I started thinking of my father the obstetrician who would work for five days straight, come home for an hour. Somebody would go into labor, he’d leave. And I’m thinking, is that really what I want for my, I never even thought about it. It was, doctor was just a thing you hero is like, if I finished this test, I actually might have to be one. And I was thinking, no, I think I’d rather figure out what all the engineering stuff was about. I’ve been introduced to computers and electronics, and I only took introduction to cause everything else was chemistries and things aimed at biology and stuff for the medical school. So I thought, no, I actually want to learn more about that. So I changed my mind, took the rest of the test. I thought it was easy. There was no pressure. It didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t count. I remember buying a six pack and driving home to the house we were living in and I called my parents and I said, mom, dad, I got good news and bad news. Well, what’s the good news son. Well, I thought the test was actually really easy. It was made out to be much harder than I actually experienced. That’s what I think I probably did pretty well. Well, what’s the news. Well, I don’t want to be a doctor anymore. And my mother without hesitation about half a second. Good. You never read directions anyway. We thought you were doing it just for your father. I said, well, okay then. So I ended up abandoning my medical school hopes or plans got a job with Hewlett Packard in a manufacturing role. Actually, I don’t even remember the role yet, but I went off to California to Hewlett Packard. I’d been transferred twice. What I ended up in was a manufacturing role. I don’t even remember what it was I accepted. And it turned out for a kid that had only introduction to, as a background. It gave me a chance to sort of figure out what engineering was about and to learn why things work and how you make more than one of something, which turns out to be a very valuable thing for an engineer, not just make the one offs, but build a product that could be produced reliably and tested and repaired and to solve somebody’s problem. So that manufacturing background, I excelled at it and did well and got invited to join the R&D lab at Hewlett Packard and worked on microprocessor design. And I leveraged that into well, as that was coming into a close talking about serendipity. In the meantime I had married my wife who was from Gainesville and we were living in California. We didn’t have any kids yet. While I was at Hewlett Packard, I got my masters at a local college there and we thought, well, maybe it’s time to move before we have kids and get settled down. I went and interviewed at HP labs in Bristol England and was thinking about moving there. And I didn’t want to be paid as a British citizen. I wanted to be paid as an American abroad. The only one at that lab being paid like that was the division manager. So they weren’t really interested in, in my negotiating a better package. And so then we thought, well, maybe we’ll move to North Carolina. My wife was from Florida, North Florida. I was from central Jersey, coastal New Jersey and Raleigh and North Carolina tech belt. There was halfway between maybe that’s what we should do. And looking at doing that. I practiced interviewing at a local company, which turned out to be sun Microsystems and they had an interest in building some computer graphics. And I realized one being in North Carolina, wasn’t going to help me. It was still a six hour drive to New Jersey or six hour drive to Florida. And it was a six hour flight from California. So in six hours I was going to get home, whichever home we wanted to go to. So I ended up joining sun to work on computer graphics with a gentleman Curtis Curtis. And I did that for six and a half years. We ended up building a graphics accelerator at graphics chips that accelerated the graphics of the sun workstation, which was aimed at professional users and people in the industry happened to be the first windowing system and windows three, one came out from Microsoft and created a consumer window in the system. So I was getting some experience with that. So at sun we learned, I learned the trade of computer graphics. Curtis was the graphics architect. I was the principle chip designer and we made use of a local firm in California that did our CIF manufacturing. And I met the third founder of NVIDIA. So Curtis and I, and this gentleman from a company called LSI logic, decided that we could take what we knew about this professional workstation and apply it to the consumer space because three D graphics was such a compelling medium for telling stories, for communicating, obviously for games, but there really wasn’t much gaming at the time, the Wolfenstein and the like were early games, but they didn’t make use of any acceleration. They just used the programers skill to get the most out of just a generic PC. We came in with a product aim to provide a level of acceleration that will allow the game writer to target something much more powerful. And we brought this workstation technology and style of acceleration to the consumer PC. And it was a great idea. Problem was that we didn’t sell to the game writers. We had to sell to Dell. We had to sell to micron and gateway and, and these other PC manufacturers. So why we created some really great technology. It was a really pretty shitty product and it didn’t help our customer win in their business. And before we ran out of money, we made that recognition and decided, what are we in business for it to succeed or to create cool technology? And we decided, no, we actually wanted to create something. So we went back modified what we did to be in line with how a Dell or micron would win. They had to win PC magazine editor’s choice award. And that means you had to be the facet. You had to be the best at whatever PC mag measured. We could do 3D graphics, but we couldn’t do it at the expense of what they measured, which was 2D graphics. So we ended up building world’s fastest, 2D graphics with 3D and that launched us out of the doldrums and started our ascension to a real company. And these days I know I’m proud to say, I think we’re one of the most important technology companies in the world we’re powering devices from your cell phone and laptops to the world’s fastest, super computers. And we’re at the heart of AI and autonomous vehicles. And it’s been quite a ride. James Di Virgilio (10:39): That’s an amazing thing. I think what’s really unique about your story is it sounds like if I would have asked your 21 year old self, would you see yourself as an entrepreneur or an inventor or even the word creative, maybe those were three things that you probably would not have applied to yourself. Chris Malachowsky (10:55): No, and it’s, it’s kind of funny off the three founders of NVIDIA. Two of them had an aspiration to start something. I actually didn’t. But when the opportunity came, I felt like I had nothing to lose. Yeah. We went without salaries for, you know, six months. But, uh, it was a well paid well-respected engineer. And if it didn’t work out, I’d go get another job. We were in an environment where experienced talented engineers or were hireable. I never felt we were real risk. So for me it was like, well, why not? I should want this. Let me give it a try. And it ended up working out quite well. I’m glad I took the leap. James Di Virgilio (11:25): Yeah. And it’s great to hear you also echo something that I’ve heard countless other entrepreneurs say, which is, you’ll almost never hear someone say that risk was too great. I was worried or I was afraid. It’s something along the lines of what you just mentioned. I looked at the opportunity and I thought, well, whatever happens, this will work out. I’ll find a way to make something of it. Chris Malachowsky (11:41): I wasn’t worried my family wasn’t going to eat or the kids weren’t going to get shoes next week. But it seemed like something worth trying. I would say this to somebody contemplating, don’t do it for the money. Don’t do it for the glory. Don’t do it for the headlines. The press do it because it’s a passion because it’s too hard. It’s too consuming. It’s too all encompassing to make it work. You can imagine the way you said you’ll be tested. The ways you’ll be pulled and yanked. And the likelihood is it doesn’t work out. I mean, you just got to acknowledge that upfront and not be disappointed, but not let that deter you. If it’s something that’s important to you. And if it’s something that accomplishing will be satisfying in whatever way, then I think it’s worth doing and you’ve got to go into it. Head on. James Di Virgilio (12:20): Yeah. I think that’s really solid. And you echo another common theme. That’s there is. If you really believe in what you’re doing, if you’re creating something, if you’re crafting something, the failures are learning points and opportunities versus crushing blows. If success is your goal, failure then becomes this measuring stick. That you’re further from it. When you’re building something, it’s just, okay, now we know that’s not great. And in your story, you actually have that exactly moment. Chris Malachowsky (12:44): I can tell you every major juncture of improvement, profitability, stock, price, market share all was on the heels of some disastrous failure, easy to hang your head in shame and walk away from. And I’m proud of the folks that we have at NVIDIA. I mean, adversity brings out the best of people. If they’re the right people and you just say, Hey, what can we learn from here? How can we be better? How can we make this? Never reflect us again, and each one of them has been a big learning curve. And a matter of fact, when we introduced our first product, the one I described as good technology, but a shitty product. There were something like 35 companies competing with us because we would sell to a board manufacturer and they came and told us they selected us over 35 others. We ended up doing a corporate partnership, but it probably costs us $15 million to develop that first product. And it went into a non-market and if everybody else did this, there was a half a billion dollars being spent to keep us from succeeding in a non-market. And the reality is if we hadn’t failed because we were the first ones out the gate, we hadn’t failed. We had the advantage of being brought into and saying, we can’t buy your product because it doesn’t help us win. You can’t buy your product because it’s not the best at this. We had the wherewithal to say, Oh, well, we built the wrong product. We were full of ourselves looking to their customer that doesn’t help them. And so almost going out of business and internalizing the lessons, made us a better company. And each one of the junctures along our path to here 25 years later is based on some failure that the right people with the right mindset found a way to leverage into strength. James Di Virgilio (14:12): And when the idea is bigger than our pride than our current knowledge, so that you can make those pivots that you have done. And that’s such an essential, obviously I can tell a piece, not only in your professional life, but I can tell in your personal life that that’s something that you hang your hat on. And I think that’s a truism for not only the most successful creators and innovators, but also people to recognize that, Hey, I don’t know everything. And when something hits the wall here, I can adjust and learn and change, or I can just keep pushing ignorantly into something that’s not going to. Chris Malachowsky (14:40): It’s also, there’s another lesson here. Surround yourself with the smartest people, be the dumbest one in the room. That’ll help you. They may not be this comfortable because your ego isn’t being stroked and not everybody’s looking to you for every answer, but that makes you more adept and more nimble. And when the pieces fall to the right collection of people, we’ll find a way to reassemble them into something better. You’re not a lone wolf. Cog in the wheel, you got to build the right wheel. James Di Virgilio (15:04): He is Chris Malachowsky co founder of NVIDIA and a 2019 inductee into the Florida inventors hall of fame. Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. I certainly hope this is part one of a part, two series of conversations between you and I for Radio Cade. I’m, James Di Virgilio. Outro (15:22): Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating inventor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcast and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song, featuring violinist Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Beloved by corporate HR departments and government agencies alike, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator measures personality types. Betsy Styron, board chairman of the Myers-Brigg Foundation, explains how the assessment works and what it should and shouldn’t be used for. An introvert herself, Betsy powers through a great interview. *This episode was originally released on July 11, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles . We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace personality. Richard Miles: 0:39It’s not just a song. It’s a test, specifically, a test called Myers Briggs type indicator. My name is Richard Miles, ENTJ. My guest today is Betsy Styron. INTP the President and CEO of the Center for Application of Psychological Type and chairman of the board of the Myers and Briggs Foundation. Welcome Betsy . Betsy Styron: 0:57Thank you. Good to be here. Richard Miles: 0:59So, the initials I rattled off after names are one of what? 16 Myers Briggs type indicator, I think. And I’ve taken that many times working for the federal government. And after 20 years, I just barely shifted from INTJ to ENTJ in fact, according to test , I have no personality at all. So I don’t know what it says about me working for the federal government or, or whatnot, but Betsy, why don’t we start out by educating our listeners for those who are not familiar? What exactly Myers-Briggs is tell us what does it measure and how does it measure it? Betsy Styron: 1:31Okay, let’s call it the NBTI Myers Briggs Type Indicator. And the word indicator simply means it indicates a preference. So we’re looking at four scales and there are two opposite sides. So let’s start with introversion extroversion, which are opposite. So I happen to be an introvert. So when I took the NBTI and got my results, essentially it pointed to introversion as a preference. We don’t like to use the word test. We call it an indicator because there was really no right or wrong answer. We all do both. I couldn’t be talking with you without extroverting. It really is about two scales. And you just prefer one over the other. The analogy that is most often used is like being right handed or left handed. You have the preference that you lead with the preference, where you get more energy. You’re typically a little bit more accomplished with that one, but we all use both hands. There will be times like now, with me with a preference for introversion that I’m talking and I’m animated about it because the topic is very interesting to me and there are four scales. And we can talk about those a little bit later, if you would like. Richard Miles: 2:46So let’s take that as an example, introversion, extroversion, what are some sample questions for instance, on the NBTI, in which you try to suss that out, whether somebody has a preference for introversion or extroversion. Betsy Styron: 2:58There are multiple items that measure the different scales. And when you sit down and take it, they’re all integrated in a way that you can’t figure out, you know, am I doing the block of questions related to this or that, but essentially, a question might be, if you have a choice to want to go out tonight and be social, or would you rather prefer to stay at home? That’s not a direct question, but the whole idea of the items is to get at the essence of what the preference means. Introversion and extroversion really is about energy. And it’s not so much about talking, which is also misunderstood. So that introverts get energized by going inward. And if we’re put into a situation where like one time early in my life, I was a school teacher , I was talking a lot. You’ll come home at the end of the day. I didn’t want to talk to anybody at the end of the day. You know , I just needed a little bit of downtime and the opposite is true for an extrovert. They get energized by interacting and wanting to go out and do things and may work all day and have a spouse of an opposite preference. And one spouse says to the other, well, let’s go out and have dinner and then go over and see friends. And the introvert might say, just give me a little bit of time before we do that. We all do both, but you just get more energy from one of the other. Richard Miles: 4:22The, the times that I took the NBTI and I , again, I probably took it at least four or five times in the state department. I think they weren’t quite sure who we were and they wanted to keep validating who we were. But I remember what followed after we took the test , er, I know, I know it’s not a test, but was these practical exercises in which they would divide us up into our personality types. And I was amazed at how accurately predicted our preferences when they gave us a practical exercise. For instance, I remember the one that we were given was you’re about to leave on vacation and you’ve got two days to get ready, write a list of all the things that you would do before you go on this trip. And the group I was in, came up with a list of like 25 things, cancel the paper, take the cat to the vet. And then there’s another group that basically like, get your passport out of the drawer and go to the airport. That was it. And it was really stunning. The difference. So there has been though a little bit of pushback, right? About the NBTI. What are some of the criticisms out there and how would you address them? Betsy Styron: 5:18I think one of the biggest criticisms that isn’t really so, is that the assessment is not reliable or valid and that’s just not accurate. Last year, the global version in English was released throughout the world, and there were separate chapters in the manual, one on the validity, and then one the reliability as part of my role in the Myers and Briggs foundation. I read that whole manual. And I don’t know the reason why some people in the academic community have not really acknowledged the NBTI and the psychometrics associated with those in terms of it being sound. And it may simply have just been a carry over from an older time because the NBTI has been around for a long time. As a matter of fact, Isabel basically created it during the time of the second world war, because she wanted to see that people were satisfied or well-matched in the kinds of jobs that they were going into, especially because it was important for those people to do those jobs well. So that’s what gave her the idea to create the indicator. Richard Miles: 6:22That’s a perfect segue in talking about the history of NBTI talking about Isabel , Isabel Myers, is that correct? Betsy Styron: 6:28That’s right. Richard Miles: 6:28So let’s go ahead and who was she? What was her background and how did it come together in the NBTI? Betsy Styron: 6:34Okay. So she was the daughter of Lyman and Catherine Briggs. Lyman, Interesting enough. Her father was the head of the Bureau of standards under three presidents in the United States. So they lived in Washington, DC, I think not far from probably where you have a home up there, there’s a row of colonial beautiful homes up there. And so she grew up there. She was mostly homeschooled by her mother. She did have an occasional governess who came in and taught other topics, Richard Miles: 7:05Betsy, what year are we talking about? Roughly what decade? Betsy Styron: 7:08She was born in 1897, Richard Miles: 7:09Ok, so turn of the last century. Betsy Styron: 7:11So, yeah, and I think having read a number of things that her mother wrote in there are papers that are at the University of Florida. I don’t want to take us off track, but I think she saw Isabel in some ways as a development project of how to have Isabel be all that she could be. So, her mother was very observant and took notes of what she did and how she behaved and how she learned and all those things. So her mother’s fascination with the topic and her fascination with Carl Jung and his theory of psychological type had a lot of impact on how she developed, but she was mostly homeschooled. Richard Miles: 7:52And the questions themselves and the NBTI. How have they evolved over time? I’m guessing that few years, is there sort of like a validation exercise where you decide, is that still a good question or not? Or how does that work? Betsy Styron: 8:06Yes, there are revisions and the publisher, the Myers-Briggs company is responsible for those and yes, it’s periodic and it’s based on how a cultural terms change and things like that. Just to keep it current. The global version that was released last year, basically went through a reliability and validity studies in Europe people who might live in France or whatever it makes sure that it was still working in those places. Richard Miles: 8:36Right. Okay. Let’s talk about the use of the NBTI. And I know there’s a distinction between what the recommendations are from, you know, Myers-Briggs foundation and then how companies , organization to actually use them. So let’s talk about what is sort of the most common way in which an organization, whether it’s a nonprofit or government entity or private corporation, if they administered this to their employees, what do they expect the employees to do with that information? What do they themselves organizations to do with it? And then as a comment, I think it’s not surprising that organizations often find they’re populated heavily by one particular type, right? Because there are certain aspects of that type that draw them to that profession in the first place. Betsy Styron: 9:19Well, yeah, and I think profession is the key word, not to take us off track, but medicine and specialty selection is an perfect example of that. And who’s attracted to family practice versus surgery. But getting back to your question of how is it most often used term we use is how is it applied? So a company might decide, let’s say to take their leadership team and give them the indicator. And they might be focusing on communication. You know, how we communicate with one another. It might be focused on leadership development in larger companies. Sometimes it’s around specific tasks . A story that comes to mind for me is my nephew who lives here in Gainesville. He went to Vanderbilt, became a mechanical engineer. He went to a company where they put him into a design department. He is a sensing type, which is a concrete, factually based person. And when he was put into the design department, which really requires enjoying more, the intuitive, big idea perspective, he really decided the job that he had wasn’t for him. He came back home and decided to go to medical school, which he did. And now he’s a musculoskeletal radiologist. Perfect job for him. But the differences between what he enjoyed and how he was able to enact his job is a contrast. It’s , that’s why I think it’s a good story. Right. So when you think about college students, as well as the workplace it’s okay. So what is it about this job or this future that fits for you? Now? Something we always say is all types can do all things. It really doesn’t have anything to do with your intelligence, your ability, your skill, your interest, any of those things. Richard Miles: 11:08Is it hard or does it come easy? Right? Betsy Styron: 11:10Right. And so do you want to do it? And one of the reasons I brought up medicine is because Isabel Myers worked with our founding president at Cap, Dr. Mary McAuley, who was a clinical psychologist at the college of medicine at the time. And so they did a very large research study together on medical specialties and who self selected to go into those specialties. You really don’t want a surgeon who has a very clear preference for intuition saying, what do you do with this? I got an idea. That’s just not . So, so typically you find mostly sensing types in surgery who have a more concrete way of seeing the world. Richard Miles: 11:55Do you know of any instances in which either organizations or individuals that use the NBTI where , you know, somebody said like, Oh wow. I’m not going to go into that field of study are not going to go into that profession cause it’s, I think probably totally unsuited for me. And it came maybe as a surprise or to organizations do be like, Oh , okay. We’re definitely not letting you know that the INTJ’s be the welcome greeters at the door. Cause they’re terrible at it. Anything like that? Betsy Styron: 12:21Yeah . Our position is that you shouldn’t use it that way. I mean, this is a preference. You go to your preference first. It doesn’t mean that you don’t develop the non-preferred side of yourself as I’m an introvert. I love to talk about things I care about. You know, so you don’t want to be stereotypical, I guess is the best word to say. Richard Miles: 12:39Put somebody in a box. These four letters define your future. Betsy Styron: 12:39Yeah, no . And actually there are areas of misuse in the corporate world with type, this is a perfect example that, you know, you might be limited, you know, and that would be coming from above. But every time we have an opportunity, those of us who are leaders in this field say, no, that’s, that’s really not. You should not, you shouldn’t be using it that way because we all have the ability. I mean, it doesn’t measure intelligence. It doesn’t measure, experience, interests . Any of those things, all it is it’s , it’s a , it’s like being right handed or left handed. As I said, in the beginning, you have a preference to be one way, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t develop another side or that we can’t all do all things. We wouldn’t be well-developed if we didn’t. Richard Miles: 13:25Let’s talk a little bit like, as I indicated earlier on, I actually changed. I tipped over from being slightly introverted to slightly extroverted. Is that just sort of a random nature of some of the questions in which if I answer one or two differently, it tips me over or is there somebody that shows that people actually can migrate over time in terms of their personality preferences and then linked to that is right . The intensity, the score, right? Cause on both my scores, I was only mildly introverted and then mildly extrovert . So was pretty much dead center. It just, I tipped over just enough to go into the other quadrant. What does your research tell you about migration? Right? From one type to another, what is the intensity indicate? You know, whether someone’s a strong introvert or mild extrovert, how does that factor in? Betsy Styron: 14:11Okay, so there’s three different. What we call steps of the NBTI step one measures your basic type preferences. And it just means the form with the questions are different. There is step two, which measures 20 facets that have been identified through the scoring process. For example, I too am an introvert, but I am an expressive introvert. Okay. So expressive is an extroverted facet. So if, when I took step two, I found out I was of preference on two scales. I’m an expressive introvert and I’m a planful perceiving type. So planful is a facet that relates to the judging, perceiving, judging, being decisive and wanting closure on things and perceiving being spontaneous and flexible. I think in my role as a CEO being planful is quite helpful. So there, there are 20 different facets that you might be out of preference. And that’s a nuanced version of the NBTI. Richard Miles: 15:29So Betsy, this show is primarily about inventors and entrepreneurs and having lived in Gaines with a long time. I know you interact with a lot of both categories and vendors, entrepreneurs. Have you noticed, is there a predominant NBTI type of person that is drawn to want to invent something or want to start a business? It seems to be a definite extraordinary willingness to take risks sometimes in the face of all available evidence. Betsy Styron: 15:53Well, that’s a , that’s a good question. I think if we stick with the principle that anybody, regardless of their type can do anything they want to do. I think the only preference that I would say that might relate to entrepreneurs would be intuition, intuition in terms of ideas, you know, people who have a preference for intuition or just like a lot of different ideas, like to explore a lot of different things. But does that mean that the opposite preference of that sensing in which is concrete and someone who’s who it see , it’s even hard for me as an intuitive to describe it. It’s always interesting to me because you have to put your mind around what, you know, versus how it feels because I’m not very concrete. So I can think of different professions that maybe relate to science where the specific detail of the research is so very important. And so there may be something else fueling their desire to stick with it. Do you understand what I’m saying? Richard Miles: 16:54So in the NBTI as sensing and intuition are kind of opposite. And so in, in the kind of stereotypical idea of the S person that would be somebody who is very much going to go by the book, or very much, depending on the known facts , and the intuition side is like, Hey, anything’s possible. And we’ll just see what happens. Betsy Styron: 17:17Okay. Yeah. That’s true. So let’s just quickly go through the four scales because you get a four letter type. Right? Okay. So the first scale is introversion and extroversion. And essentially that is where your energy comes from. If you are an introvert. Um, and you’ve been talking all day, which is extroverted, you’re going to want to go inside at some point to reenergize yourself and vice versa. Richard Miles: 17:44Now is that first because you consider that sort of the most important framework in which to look at the other aspects or is that just, is it random the order in which those types, Betsy Styron: 17:52So when you get your type, so , um , you said you’re an INTJ? Richard Miles: 17:56ENTJ Betsy Styron: 17:56ENTJ. Okay, so that I couldn’t remember where they, okay, lets just take ENTJ. You know, you can either extrovert all day and that energizes you, but there will come a time during that day where you need to introvert. It could be because of a project , uh , you know, you have to solve a problem or simply, you know, whatever you’re doing demands or you want to, you know, we have to look at it as being right-handed and left-handed just for the general public to think about it, got to do both. And we would be really one sided if we didn’t. The next scale is how you gather information and that’s either through sensing or intuition. So sensing being, you like to gather information in a concrete way, sometimes thinking about things sequentially, and if you have a preference for intuition, then you’re using things that maybe just can’t put your finger quite on, a hunch, or it could be that you have read something or learn something that inspired you to think about another idea. Richard Miles: 19:03Got it . Betsy Styron: 19:03So you can be creative with that and always keeping in mind that we have to do both. Otherwise we wouldn’t be effective as a person. Richard Miles: 19:12Yeah, well I wouldn’t be alive. Betsy Styron: 19:14Well, we prefer it . We’re better at it. And you can get stuck in going into that side. You prefer more. And I mean, I am famous when driving with directions cause I have a preference for intuition going , Oh , you know, it’s a mile or two away. then like you’re 15 miles later. It’s like, okay, I didn’t get that right because I think you’re not quite as good and as accurate with you’re non preferential side. Richard Miles: 19:41So Google maps has ruined your world, you know? Betsy Styron: 19:43Oh no, actually I love Google maps if it talks to me, but yeah. Richard Miles: 19:48As long as that’s encouraging, right? Betsy Styron: 19:49Yes, exactly. Exactly. Richard Miles: 19:51So that we’ve done the first two letters and then the what’s the third? Betsy Styron: 19:55Okay. So thinking and feeling, Richard Miles: 19:56Thinking and feeling. Got it. Betsy Styron: 19:57Okay. So yeah. So people who have a preference for thinking and feeling, this is how you judge and decide is if you have a preference for feeling, you’re going to care more about how you feel about someone else feels it’s a values based decision making, thinking on the other side is based on logical decision making. And do you use that word is a little difficult because it implies that you might not be logical if you’re feeling type and that’s not true. I remember it, it always comes back to both, but you just go to your strength. So as a thinking decision maker that I am in, you are too. So I really want to go learn more about something I want to, as much as I can find out about it, ask questions to learn more. I have to work at, especially because I’m in a leadership position, if I say something, I want to be careful how I say it. Right. You know, and my humor might sneak in there and say something that could be hurtful to somebody and come across as sarcastic when I wouldn’t mean it that way. So your non-preferred side is just not as easy and facile. Richard Miles: 21:15Yeah. Yeah. It strikes me that people who are tilt towards that T side, a lot of academics, a lot of writers, you know , a lot of people in the chattering class right? Where they’re , they’re mostly, they love, they’re drawn to kind of the information based nature of a , of a problem. And as you said, they might not be quite as strong in the communication with an organization. Betsy Styron: 21:35Yeah. And for me, with my type, I’m a dominant, introverted thinking type. My mind, continuously solving problems quietly inside. So if I’m working on writing a paper or something like that, I can be driving home and be analyzing it in my head, what I’m doing. And it’s easier to describe what we do personally than it is what other people are doing it, but each of us, but each of us has a dominant. And so you lead with that, but like, I can go back to that left hand, right. Hand analogy. We all do both. And with age type development is really important. I am much different from when I was in my twenties. As a matter of fact, as a leader , uh , in my twenties, I might not even think about how somebody might respond to something I said, or I was critical in a way that wasn’t as considerate is it might have been. So the good news is with type as a lifelong developmental model that as we age, we become more effective in our non preferred side. Richard Miles: 22:44Where there too many things that are universal. I think one universal thing is everyone who’s in their fifties, cringes at their self, in their twenties, Betsy Styron: 22:50Oh absolutely, oh yes. Richard Miles: 22:50Looking back on the things you said or did and then thought and like, Oh my God . Betsy Styron: 22:56Yes, how many times did you want to put those words back in your mouth? Right? Richard Miles: 22:59So that leaves us with one final letter, right? What’s the , the final dimension? Betsy Styron: 23:03It’s your orientation to life, basically how you go about , uh , so some people are spontaneous and want to, this is the JP scale judging, perceiving scale, people who are perceiving don’t mind a plan necessarily, but tend to want to just be spontaneous and do something that’s right in the moment. And they might be more flexible and adaptable than a person who has a preference for judging. So if you have a preference for judging, you tend to be planful. Um, you know, the famous example of that is who makes lists and who doesn’t typically people with a preference for judging will make lists about things they have to accomplish that day. That week, that month, that year perceiving types are much less likely to do that. They want to say, okay, I’ve got one or two things that I know that I’m going to do today. The third, fourth, and fifth things that could be today, that could be tomorrow. I might not ever get around to it. And it’s really interesting. I think in couples, this is one of the areas that there’s, it creates more problems because , uh, you know, for example, my husband is , has a preference for judging and I have a preference for perceiving. I’m much more laid back about whether it gets done or it doesn’t. And then sometimes he’ll say, but we said we were going to do that. So he gets his mind focused on that, which well, and I did say that, but somewhere along the line, I changed my mind, which I am sure. Richard Miles: 24:35You forgot to tell him you changed your mind. Betsy Styron: 24:37Exactly, exactly. Which you know, Richard Miles: 24:39I assure you’re the only married couple to which that’s ever happened. It doesn’t happen to anybody. Betsy Styron: 24:42Yeah. Right, right, exactly. But it’s good to know. As a matter of fact, sometimes people want to give the NBTI as a wedding present to couples that are getting ready to get married. That whoever’s doing the feedback, which by the way is required when you take the assessment, did you have a feedback on all four scales with your results, one on one with somebody who’s been trained to do that, Because the verification process is really important. If you see the results and you say, well, that’s who I am. If you didn’t say explain it to the person in that feedback process and there’s a whole protocol for that, that we don’t need to get into here, but it’s very important for people to understand it’s their life, their type. And maybe they’re not real clear about a preference. So then they can work on that over time. Although the research does show the older that you get, the more clear you are in your head, that it’s the right preference. Richard Miles: 25:40So that actually sets up my final question Betsy and basically, if somebody who’s already in a job they’re already in a profession, maybe they’ve been in it for several years. If they take the NBTI and find out like, oops, I’m not really suited for my current position. What is generally the advice given to them? I mean, change their jobs or do they work on changing themselves? Betsy Styron: 25:59I don’t think either choice really, unless they want to change jobs. I mean, we don’t really want our type preferences to dictate us. We want to think about what makes us happy, what our skills are and all of those sorts of things. I think that we probably naturally tend if we’re in positions that allow us to do it, is to focus on the kinds of things we do well. And maybe either delegate to people who are , you know, might do the thing that you’re not thinking you’re doing so well, or figure out another kind of solution with that. I think that for me, if something doesn’t quite fit, then I looking for somebody in the organization that say, would you help me with this? Or are you willing to take responsibility and just delegate it? Or if you’re working with a peer and this is really important and teamwork, as a matter of fact , uh , cat publishes a leadership and team assessment where it integrates the NBTI with leadership. And so then within the team, as the leader, you can say, okay, this is what needs to be done. Who would like to volunteer for this? Or would you like to partner with somebody? I think the overall message is understanding type enriches, how effective you can be if you know yourself. But if you know each other’s types, it really is helpful just knowing your type. It gave me some information and not in a stereotypical kind of way about what might be important in terms of getting to the heart of what you’re asking. Does that make sense to you? Richard Miles: 27:41Well, on that note, I’m Betsy sincere a self identified introvert, and I tend towards introversion. This conversation has exhausted us, right? It’s your time to bring it to a close, we’re going to go home and take a nap and recover . Well , we can deal with the rest of the world, but Betsy, thank you very much for being on Radio Cade, it’s a fascinating subject. I find it fascinating at least. I know you do, best of luck with the center and with the foundation and look forward to having you back on the show. Betsy Styron: 28:03Thank you so very much. Richard Miles: 28:05I am Richard Miles. Outro: 28:07Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and vendor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcast and music theme, Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song featuring violinist , Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Microbiologist Phillip Furman is the inventor of AZT, an anti-HIV drug, and other antiviral drugs for Herpes and Hepatitis B and C. He talks about his breakthrough moments, the difficulties of taking “miracle” drugs to market, and the culture shock of moving from New York to Florida as a teenager. Furman’s interest in science was fueled at age 8 with the gifts of a microscope from an uncle and a chemistry set from his parents. His advice to researchers: “Follow the data. Negative results give you as much information as positive results.” *This episode was originally released on October 23, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:36Treating viral diseases is hard, but not as hard as it used to be, thanks to the development of antiviral drugs. Welcome to Radio Cade, I’m your host, Richard Miles and today my guest is Phillip Furman, a microbiologist and the holder of 20 U.S. Patents. The inventor of AZT an anti-HIV drug, and a 2018 inductee into the Florida inventors hall of fame. Welcome to show Phillip and congratulations. Phillip Furman: 1:00Thank you very much, Richard. Richard Miles: 1:01So, the problem with interviewing super inventors like you is trying to focus on just one thing, but you have 20 patents, you’ve done a lot of things and you’ve developed antiviral drugs for herpes, HIV, hepatitis B and C. And we could talk about each one of those probably for a long time, but then we’d have to order in lunch, dinner, and probably sleeping bags for this session. So let’s start though with a basic definition of viruses for listeners who may not be microbiologists , how viruses act in the body and how they can be treated. Phillip Furman: 1:33Well, viruses, some people think are very simple. They are an intracellular parasite. They have to infect a cell in order to be able to reproduce themselves and their basic components are there genetic information, a virus capsid, which surrounds them. It’s a protein coat that protects them once they get into the cell. And some of them have a membrane, which they pick up when they are released from the cell, but viruses aren’t quite that simple. Richard Miles: 2:07Spoiler alert, it’s not that simple. Phillip Furman: 2:08They, a lot of them contain or code for proteins or enzymes, which function in the replication of the virus. Everybody thinks that well, once the virus gets into the cell, it requires the cell to produce enzymes and proteins that are essential for virus replication. And the buyer system takes that over and doesn’t have any of its own proteins or enzymes to replicate itself, but indeed they do. Richard Miles: 2:34So you’ve been working on this for quite a long time. Right? You got your undergraduate degree in microbiology? Phillip Furman: 2:40In microbiology. Yes. Richard Miles: 2:42What was your big breakthrough? Which one of the antiviral drugs came first? Phillip Furman: 2:46Acyclovir was the first one I worked on. Richard Miles: 2:49And that’s treatment for herpes viruses? Phillip Furman: 2:52Yes. Richard Miles: 2:52Do you remember the path, the conceptual path that got you there. What was the first thing that you noticed or discovered that made that possible? Phillip Furman: 3:00Well, the compound at the time was already discovered and patented. That happened in 1974 and I was a postdoc at Duke University and the department had at Burroughs Wellcome, Dr. Trudy Elion, who became a Nobel Laureate, was looking for a virologist to establish a virology laboratory within the company. And so I was hired to do that. My job was to work on the drug to try to find out how it worked, how it inhibited the virus. Richard Miles: 3:32So describe for us how long that takes. I mean, I think there’s a popular conception out there with a lot of inventions, including miracle drugs that you have a brilliant researcher has an insight developmental breakthrough. And few months, years later, we’ve got a wonder drug, but I’m guessing it’s not that simple. Phillip Furman: 3:51Are you referring to time of discovery to time of marketing? Richard Miles: 3:55Well, yeah, something like that or at what point are you certain of your results? How long did that take for instance, the herpes antiviral drug? Was it a matter of months or a matter of years? How much followup research and testing before you kind of knew this? Phillip Furman: 4:07Well, it really is a matter of years. I mean from time of discovery to getting it to the market takes roughly 12 to 18 years. Richard Miles: 4:15Wow. Phillip Furman: 4:16Now you really don’t know how effective a drug is going to be until you test it in humans for the very first time. And that can take from time of discovery to actually, first in humans, maybe five years. Richard Miles: 4:31Cause you start out with animals first. Right? Phillip Furman: 4:34Well, if you’re looking at efficacy, it depends on whether or not there is an animal model available to test its efficacy . If not, well, then you’ve got to, and of course you do any way to get a drug approved, show primarily that it is safe. That is the main criteria that the FDA is looking for, that the drug is safe. And there’s a lot of tests that go on between the discovery and putting it into humans to show that it’s safe, both in vitro or in cell culture essays to show that it’s not toxic to cells all the way to animals and doing in vivo toxicology studies. Richard Miles: 5:16So after you’ve completed animal trials, of course, the next big thing is to start conducting human trials, which I understand is one, very expensive, right? Phillip Furman: 5:24It is. Richard Miles: 5:25And then two, fairly lengthy because you have to have, I presume a big enough sample size, which requires drawing in appropriate humans to do the study, make sure that you’re demographically balanced, et cetera, et cetera. And then of course there’s a safety angle, right? It’s not going to let you do this and start experimenting in humans with experimental drug, unless you’ve given them some assurances that this is not going to kill people, right? Phillip Furman: 5:48That’s correct. The first studies in humans are a short trial with a small population of volunteers. Richard Miles: 5:54And how small roughly are we talking about maybe? Phillip Furman: 5:57Um, 50 to 100. And what they do is they agree to take the drug for a certain amount of time and then are followed by physicians to look for any adverse reaction to the drug. And that’s called the phase one study. Richard Miles: 6:13And that can take a couple years? Phillip Furman: 6:15No, that can take a year. Now the phase one study is primarily to show safety. Richard Miles: 6:23Okay. No negative effects. So you’re not even looking to see does the drug work, does it not harm people? Phillip Furman: 6:30Now, that has changed a little bit in that the human volunteers can also be people who are infected with the virus. And that’s what was done with AZT. That’s what was done with drugs for hepatitis B and hepatitis C. The investigators were able to do these short term studies to show safety, but they were able to do them in volunteers who were infected with the virus. So they got a quick handle on whether or not there was any efficacy for the drug. Richard Miles: 7:01I see. So it’s beneficial, I guess, from both sides, right? Because from the investigator side, you now get to jump to, I’m actually treating someone who has this condition. And from the patient side, they’re getting access to potentially a lifesaving drug, presumably a lot earlier than they might. Phillip Furman: 7:18Not really, no. You still have to follow the protocol that the FDA requires. And that is to do the phase one study, which is primarily a safety study. Then if you show safety, you can go to phase two, which is where the bigger population of patients. And those are generally patients who are infected by the virus. So that’s really your first real look at efficacy. The phase one study that’s done in human volunteers shows you some efficacy. It helps you to determine what dose you might want to use in your next studies Richard Miles: 7:57In phase two studies. How many people does that involve? Phillip Furman: 8:01Oh geez, that’s several hundred. Richard Miles: 8:03Several hundred. Okay . And they have to be presumably recruited and screened so that, you know, you’re going to get some pretty representative results . Phillip Furman: 8:11That’s right, that’s right. Richard Miles: 8:12Those take several years or how long did this take? Phillip Furman: 8:15The study probably will go on six months to a year. A lot of it depends upon what the FDA is going to require. After the phase one study, you meet with the FDA with a proposal for phase two and they can have you adjust your study , uh , according to what they want to see. Richard Miles: 8:33Let’s talk about efficacy. How does the world look different now for someone with HIV or hepatitis B or C with the development of these antiviral drugs? What was it before in terms of quality of life, life expectancy, that sort of thing. And what does it look like now? Phillip Furman: 8:47Well, for any of these chronic infections, we won’t talk about herpes because that’s really, although it’s a chronic infection wasn’t necessarily life threatening, but with HIV, it progressed dramatically from AZT to other drugs and combinations of drugs with AZT, there was some efficacy involved, but it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the best. And we knew that from the start, that AZT would be well, if you will, the breakthrough to show that you can treat HIV much, like you treat heart conditions, diabetes, cancer, as a chronic disease, it wouldn’t be a cure, but you could hopefully extend the life expectancy of the patients. There was some positive effects with AZT , but as I said, it wasn’t the best, but it opened the door to other pharmaceutical companies to come in and develop other drugs. And some of these drugs were put into combination with AZT. And now the life expectancy with the new drugs that have come out, people can live a normal life. Richard Miles: 9:53Wow. That’s stunning. Really. I mean, if you think about HIV/AIDS was I guess, first discovered in the eighties, right? Phillip Furman: 9:59Yes. Richard Miles: 9:59And at that time effectively was a death sentence, right? Phillip Furman: 10:02Yeah, it was. Richard Miles: 10:02It was basically some matter of time. And now, like you said, it’s in the same category as having heart disease or kidney disease or something that it’s a serious condition, but yet it can be managed effectively. In combination with these drugs. Phillip Furman: 10:16Now hepatitis C on the other hand is totally different. It is a chronic disease, but it’s curable. And the work that we did at Pharmaset, the discovery is Sofosbuvir showed that you can cure hepatitis C patients up to 99% of them, as opposed to the combination of Interferon and Ribavirin, which was able to cure maybe at the most 50% of the patients that were treated. A lot of them failed. A lot of them quit because the Interferon / Ribavirin in combination was actually like having the flu for as long as you were on the combination, people were just miserable. Richard Miles: 10:58Right, right. And taking it, it’s a bit of a double edged sword when you have these incredible breakthroughs, like with HIV and AZT, do people begin to think that this is an easier process than it actually is because on hand, people say, well, look, once we throw enough money at this, then boom, we come up with a pretty good solution or does it spur maybe more funding, more research, more resources devoted to other diseases? Sometimes success is more problematic than failure, right? It brings new problems that you didn’t even think of before has that also to some extent happened in the drug discovery world? Phillip Furman: 11:33Oh absolutely, I will refer back to Acyclovir. Prior to the discovery of Acyclovir, there was very little work going on in antivirals. The focus of antiviral drug discovery from 1960s forward to Acyclovir was minimal. Few companies were dabbling in. It all focused on herpes viruses and the drugs that they were coming up with all came from anticancer programs. So they were very toxic and could not be used systemically, but Acyclovir was really the game changer because, it was found to be not only specific for herpes virus, but very selective in that it was relatively nontoxic. And so it was consequently the first approved antiviral for herpes or antiviral drug that could be used systemically. Richard Miles: 12:27Wow. Phillip Furman: 12:27The others were all used topically. Richard Miles: 12:28So Phillip, you’re uniquely, I think qualified to sort of look at the whole drug discovery process from the beginning to a successful conclusion. And this is something that constantly has the attention of politicians and society at large healthcare , particularly diseases. Are there things that from a policy perspective, say the government or even private foundations when they make their decisions about how to spend money, are there changes in that process? Again, starting out with the researcher, the investigator through to getting the drug or the treatment on market that government should be doing, whether it’s national state local, or that foundations that support research should be doing that would make this process easier, that isn’t getting attention? Only easy questions on this show Phillip, we don’t go for hard ones. Or if you want to focus on any one segment of that, is there a policy change that would make some of this a little bit easier and faster? Phillip Furman: 13:22Well, there was a policy change in the FDA that occurred because of the approval of AZT and what it allowed the FDA to do was to approve certain drugs for diseases that were serious diseases, basically like AZT where the outcome was obviously you are going to die, right? And the approval of AZT did help the speed up the approval process in that the FDA shortened, the approval process for drugs that met an unmet medical need. And that was for patients who were dying from a disease, that there was no drug available. And so they actually changed the regulations so that in situations where there is an unmet medical need and it was life threatening, that they would allow drugs to be approved more rapidly with less data. Richard Miles: 14:22Okay. So if you were to compare this, to say some new drug or procedure that aided in heart disease, the FDA could say, well, look, there are other available treatments for heart disease. So we need to go slower on this. Cause we’re not sure if it’s better, et cetera, et cetera. But in this case in HIV, there was no alternate treatment, Phillip Furman: 14:38That’s absolutely right. Richard Miles: 14:39And people are dying l eft a nd right. So i n those cases, that’s a pretty solid contribution I think, as a lay person, what I would hear and continue to hear to some extent i s t hat, well, gosh, if only the FDA, w e’re not as slow, we’re more efficient t han we’d have more of these drugs on the market. And it sounds like the development of A ZT in particular helped shorten that cycle for those cases, in which, Phillip Furman: 15:00There was an unmet medical need. Richard Miles: 15:03Right, there’s no other option on the table. Phillip let’s talk about you for a little bit. And like a lot of people in Florida, you’re from New York. You’re not from Florida lets put it that way, you came to Florida as a teenager to Tarpon Springs. Phillip Furman: 15:16That’s correct. Richard Miles: 15:17So what was that like? Was that a bit of a culture shock? Phillip Furman: 15:19Oh it was. Richard Miles: 15:20To come down to Tarpon Springs, first of all, why did you move? Did your parents get a new job down here? Phillip Furman: 15:25My dad took a job that required him to travel. He worked for a refrigeration company and he was given the state of Florida, Georgia and, Richard Miles: 15:36Kind of as his territory? Phillip Furman: 15:37Yeah. It was his territory. And so felt that moving to Florida and centralizing in Florida would be the thing to do. Richard Miles: 15:46And so you were kind of drawn to science at an early age, right? I mean you fairly were a good student. Is there a particular teacher or class in particular where you thought this is great? I love this. Phillip Furman: 15:56Well, yes. I mean, when you said that I was drawn at an early age, I was, probably about eight years old. My uncle gave me a microscope. That was his, when he was a kid. And I was just absolutely fascinated with what you could see with a microscope. Richard Miles: 16:12Do you remember some of the first things that you would try putting in the , Phillip Furman: 16:15Just water from, out in the driveway or leaves or onion skins? Oh , you know, a lot of the same things that most people would probably look at, but it opened a whole new world for me. And then, well then after that probably a year or two later, my folks gave me a chemistry set. One of those big Gilbert chemistry sets. If you ever seen one of those. And I would work in the garage in the summertime with that chemistry set, there was a bench out there and I’d have that set up in the winter when it was snowing, I would go down in the basement and there was a work bench there that I put it up . Richard Miles: 16:51Were your parents ever worried about the garage blowing up? Phillip Furman: 16:53No, no. Richard Miles: 16:53So between the microscope and the chemistry set, Phillip Furman: 16:59That got me. Richard Miles: 17:00That got you, kind of hooked. Phillip Furman: 17:01I think there was always interested in exploring. And I think that opened up the whole idea of wanting to discover things, because the next thing, when I was 12 years old, my dad came home. He was taking flying lessons at the airport up in New York. And he came home and said that some people found arrowheads down along the river bank there where they plowed the fields, plant corn right next to the airport. Oh boy, I want to do that. So I went down and I actually , uh , been interested in archeology ever since and have done site surveys for the state of North Carolina. Richard Miles: 17:41Oh wow, okay . This is more than just a hobby? Phillip Furman: 17:43I was living in North Carolina. Well, I thought about that as a career, but I enjoy this too much. This is too much like fun. This is my relaxation. Richard Miles: 17:51Ok right, you didn’t want to make it, you didn’t want to ruin it by making it work. Phillip Furman: 17:55But getting back to the question of who, when I was in college, I took a microbiology course and became very interested in microbiology. And I happened to be myself and my suite mate. I happened to be very fortunate to have a very good relationship with the chairman of the department. And he kind of took us under our wing and under his wing, sorry, he kind of pushed me towards medical microbiology. I thought that’s what I wanted to be. It was a medical microbiologist and working in the hospital laboratory and doing, Richard Miles: 18:32And that was here at University of South Florida, right? Phillip Furman: 18:34No, this was at Piedmont College. Yeah. Where I got my bachelor’s , but then when I graduated, I thought, you know, I really probably need more education and I should probably get a master’s . And so I applied to USF and got into the master’s program and was very fortunate again, to have another tremendous mentor , uh , Dr. John Betts , who passed away a few years ago. And I did my dissertation research with him and it was amazing. I mean, I worked on a phenomenon called the auto plaque phenomenon. This particular type of bacteria kind of kills itself. And we tried to figure out why I did all sorts of experiments, played around with bacteria phage, which is a bacteria virus that infects bacteria and kills them and did a lot of work on electron microscope. And I thought , wow, this is terrific. And so when I finished up everything, I went and talked to him about what I ought to do for a career. Should I do anything more? And he said, you should go on and get your PhD. I said, well, I’d like to do the same things I’m doing with you. And he says , no, you ought to consider animal viruses their up and coming thing. And that was actually back in 1970. So animal viruses were beginning to become very popular to work with. And so I went on to Tulane and got my PhD in microbiology with an emphasis in virology. Richard Miles: 20:07That’s a perfect segue into my next question, in which I imagine now roles are reversed in which you have graduate students coming to you, or you have other people maybe in the industry coming to you, seeking advice, if you could meet your 21 or 22 year old self, or maybe 21 or 22 year olds seek your advice, what sort of advice do you generally give them? And then I guess I’ll tack on one question. What sort of questions do you normally get? Are they all sort of very specific? Do I go to this program or that program? Are they more general? Like what do I do as a career type of questions? Phillip Furman: 20:38I think it’s more, what should I do for a career? Basically tell them to follow their heart. What did they love? And once they find what they’re looking for to not just focus on that one specific thing. You know, don’t focus in on virology, learn everything that you possibly can. If it includes other disciplines, learn that you’re bound to find something in a totally different discipline that might be applied to what you are really interested in focusing on. And then I would probably tell them as Jim Valvano, the basketball coach that died of cancer, who was a coach at North Carolina State University, don’t give up, don’t ever give up. One last thing is with regard to their own personal research as to keep an open mind, follow the data, that negative results to give you as much information as a positive result. Well, that is all great advice. I think you need to write a book or something about something you said jumped out at me and something I’ve heard from a lot of inventors and that is while you’re focused on one area, nevertheless, bring in insights from other disciplines or other areas because that’s, I think truly where the invention part happens, right? Because if you’re just staring at your data all day long, that’s all you see. But if you’re able to bring in other models, other paradigms from totally different fields or dissimilar fields, that’s often where you’re able to now look at the same data and just come away with different conclusions or insights . I’ve heard that from a lot of inventors. I’m guessing there’s something there. I think there is. Richard Miles: 22:18I think there’s something there. Thank you very much for being on this episode of Radio Cade, I neglected to mention we’re recording this and the Palatial Studios of University of South Florida in Tampa with the assistance of the Ford Inventors Hall of Fame with whom the Cade Museum has a partnership. So we’re very happy that USF and Ford Inventors Hall of fame connection and Phillip thank you very much for being on the show. Phillip Furman: 22:38Thank you. Outro: 22:40Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and vendor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme, Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song, featuring violinist, Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Can video games be used for education? Co-host James Di Virgilio puts that question to Lindsey Tropf, founder and CEO of Immersed Games. Unlike other educational software, Immersed Games uses online, multi-player experiences to teach things like STEM skills to middle-schoolers. Eventually, the programs can be customized by individual teachers to achieve their specific learning goals. A gamer herself, Lindsey became an “accidental” entrepreneur while earning her PhD in education. *This episode was originally released on July 31, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade and podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio: 0:36 Video games are the most popular form of entertainment, but can they be used for education? I’m James Di Virgilio. One of the cohost of Radio Cade, and with me today is Lindsey Tropf, the founder and CEO of Immersed Games. Lindsey , thanks for joining us. Lindsey Tropf: 0:51 Thanks for having me, I’m excited to be able to chat. James Di Virgilio: 0:53 So Immersed Games, the first thing somebody might think of, if they don’t know what it is you do is that you’re creating video games, which is only partly true. Tell us what you’re working on and why that’s different. Lindsey Tropf: 1:02 So, we are focusing on video games that really empower people to do deep learning and problem-solving. Right now, we’re really focusing around middle school science. We chose this because middle school is generally the time that students either really solidify their love of STEM or it drops off. And so it’s a really critical time point for students when they’re trying to engage around STEM and science topics. And so, our games really focus on bringing that love of problem solving and understanding of the importance of it to the forefront so that students are engaging in exploring a coral reef that has a problem to figure out how climate change is affecting it, or building an ecosystem from scratch to learn how to balance it. And so they’re engaging these really hands-on problem-solving experiences that are really kind of an authentic experience of maybe something as scientists would do or think about. James Di Virgilio: 1:52 The game itself is not like a typical game somebody might think of when it comes to education. I have a friend, he home schools his children, they use a lot of educational games , uh , very successfully , but they tend to be one player games that navigate you through a course or a curriculum. Yours is entirely different, it’s an online player based interactive multi-player game. Tell us a little bit more about that. Lindsey Tropf: 2:12 Yeah, so the inspiration behind it came from playing a lot of those types of games when I was in high school, I played something called, Star Wars Galaxies, where you actually made player cities together and did all sorts of really cool emerging, creative things out of that. And then a lot of World of Warcraft and things. So when I was working on my PhD in education at the University of Florida, as we talked about what ideal learning and ideal learning communities looked like, it really always reminded me of these gameplay experiences. And so for me, it was about not wanting only kind of the single player experience that delivers content, but there’s a lot of richer things you can do if you have a community around it, if you’re problem solving together, if you’re collaborating and you’re building those skills. And so we’re actually working on a grant with the National Science Foundation right now, where we’re adding an entire piece where groups of students work together to figure out what’s wrong and an ecosystem and test engineering solutions together. And you can’t really do that as well on a single player game. James Di Virgilio: 3:05 When you’re creating this massive, online, learning world, it seems like you’re trying to create a game that can be tailored. Is that right? So if the school board in New York wants to be able to have your game achieve XYZ , you can create an online environment that mimics that or helps achieve that goal, right? It’s not just a static world. It’s one that you can adapt and customize? Lindsey Tropf: 3:23 That’s something we could do in the future, right now we’re really just working on a very strong core, but yes, we have a whole set of content, authoring tools and part of our longterm goals are to let people start customizing with those. And some of the sooner ways that we’ll be addressing that are actually with this NSF project that I just mentioned, the National Science Foundation, that we are going to be making some early versions where teachers can start customizing and saying like, okay, I want students to work together and solve a problem, but actually use some tools to say, well, in our area, maybe bees dying are a really big issue or pollution in the water is a really big issue and so they could choose different things they want to turn on or off and start customizing. So in addition to that, we have had some conversations with local departments of education or different groups about maybe making some custom content for them. Yes. As well. So in Washington state, forest fires are really big for climate change over there. While on the east coast, they might be more concerned about flooding, but the local context of those problems is really important. And that’s something we definitely want to be able to address more as well as we keep growing. James Di Virgilio: 4:26 Now when I think about my educational background, Lindsey , I think of going to public school in Sarasota, discovering Oregon Trail, discovering Tank Wars, discovering these games that were very entertaining. I can’t recall really many of the games I played that were educational. I also remember growing up hearing that educational TV would be a big thing, but PBS survives, but is it really accomplishing its goal? Video gaming and the video gaming industry, significantly dwarfs Hollywood, do you believe now is the right time for educational video games to actually take hold? Will it be different than my childhood? Where I would look at anything educational and say, that’s not a game. I don’t care what I’m doing in it. It’s not this. Lindsey Tropf: 5:02 Yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot of tech reasons, obviously just it’s easier and faster for us to make games than it used to be. We’re better at doing it, I mean, we’ve learned a lot. We have better communities, but one of the most important is really on the learning side as well. We have, for instance, a new set of science standards called the next generation science standards that are being adopted across the country. About 80% of students in the U.S. are now on these science standards. And what they say is, we don’t want people to just know content anymore. These new science standards say our goal is to really develop scientific literacy, where people are solving their own problems and figuring it out themselves and actually doing hands on science experiences. And so it’s a really great timing for us because that’s what a good game looks like. A good game looks like me going in and solving a problem. And I know that might seem counterintuitive, when I say it that way, but if you’re even playing Angry Birds, you are trying to figure out the best strategy for using the birds you have and how many you have to knock down the structure on the other side of the screen, every video game at its core is a learning process for you. And if I’m just trying to deliver content, I don’t really have a good opportunity to engage in a real game play experience. But if I’m trying to, and the teachers are aligned with me now, and the teachers want experiences where the kids are problem solving and figuring out content on their own. That’s what makes a perfect video game. And so that’s why the timing is really nice right now that everyone’s kind of shifting and trying to figure out what resources help us do this better in a classroom and the meetings I have are just so much excitement with educators right now. James Di Virgilio: 6:29 And you’re absolutely right that every game involves a core element of problem solving. I mean, Super Mario Brothers, right? One of the most popular games that came out when we were kids in the eighties, that game is entirely about problem solving, memorizing, where certain things are, beating the levels , learning the bosses and people loved it. I loved it. I mean, there’s so many other games that I play that are just like that, including games I play today. But kids seem to know this is supposed to teach me something. Are you finding when you’re testing out your game, when people are going on title align, that they are not having that experience, does it feel like Angry Birds to them or does it feel like Super Mario Brothers? Does it feel like they get lost in the world? Just like they would playing Fortnite or something else. Lindsey Tropf: 7:06 I’m going to kind of challenge the assumption of the question that kids shouldn’t realize they’re learning in order for it to feel like a great video game. If you’re actually learning and you’re in the state of challenge, you’re not bored, you’re having fun. And so generally when I talk to kids, I say we’re a video game that’s based on science. And they say, cool. You know, it’s really about the gameplay itself to them. And so they can tell their learning if they’re in our video game. I mean, it’s kind of hard to be trying to figure out how to breed the coolest dragon you can using genetic principles and not realize you’re learning genetic principles. And for me, it’s not about hiding that. It’s about making that something worthwhile and fully engaging and fascinating for a kid to solve that problem, because I want to make this great dragon. And because the problem itself is interesting, which maybe I’m just a total nerd, cause that’s my perspective. And maybe kids don’t realize that their perspective when they first started the game, but that’s what we see. They know they’re learning, but it’s not a negative necessarily. If the context of what they’re doing is intriguing enough to them that they really want to do that. If that makes sense, James Di Virgilio: 8:08 It does make sense, and in fact, that’s a big mission of the Cade Museum, is to take science and engineering and make it accessible, make it something that is fun to learn and learning obviously should be fun. And I think video games are public educational television. It’s sort of had a stigma and it’s interesting, and then in 10 years, I think you’re right. A lot of that has changed and I think people are more open to playing all sorts of games regardless of how they’re tied. And the fun factor is the key. So, How do you go about designing a fun game that’s around education? Is it exactly the same? If you, all of a sudden we’re using Immerse Games to develop a recreational game, would you employ a lot of the same tactics? Is it basically the same thing only now you’re putting science in verse something different? Lindsey Tropf: 8:43 In a way, yes, because all game design has constraints. And so normally if I’m designing a game, maybe the constraints are less because if I’m not doing an educational game, maybe my constraints are around who I’m trying to target what their demographics are, what the kind of purpose and story of the game is what my budget is, and you have all of these things. We have all the same constraints. We just have a few extra ones which are while we’re doing it, our goal rather than only being a goal of designing around, maybe a certain theme is okay, well, our theme is we’re trying to teach a certain topic . So we want to design a system that allows for exploration of that. But that is very similar to any other idea that somebody generates for a commercial game. It’s just that our ideas is that let’s engaged with this scientific concept instead, some of the constraints we have that are more challenging might be that for instance, we don’t want to introduce incorrect concepts. So sometimes someone has a really funny, especially gameplay idea that we think would be really great to include, but it could lead to a misconception being introduced. So we have to be careful around that. Another constraint challenge when making a good educational game by far, is the actual realities of classroom usage. So we have to recognize that teachers might want to engage in our content in a variety of ways, time periods. They might want to teach it in a different order than we intended and so, that’s by far our bigger constraints , if we didn’t have to worry about that, it would actually be a lot easier to make it just feel exactly like a normal commercial game that just happens to be science. James Di Virgilio: 10:09 So, you’re in ABD, which I love that term and all, but dissertation and education, right? So you’re almost a PhD maybe that never happens, maybe it doesn’t, I’m sure that you didn’t dream of becoming an entrepreneur when you started your PhD. Right? Lindsey Tropf: 10:22 Correct. James Di Virgilio: 10:22 And then this comes upon you and you get into it. What has life been like for you Lindsey as an entrepreneur? This has been, I think a five now, maybe on year six for you ride, you’ve won several pitch competitions. You move to Buffalo after winning a $500,000 prize and a very prestigious competition last year. A lot of great things have happened for Immerse. Walk me through the beginning of when you actually started to form this company and then bring me up to present day. Lindsey Tropf: 10:46 Yeah, so I started looking into educational games for my dissertation. I obviously had been a gamer myself personally, so I saw a lot of passion around educational games. When I entered my PhD program, I think I was maybe going to be a practitioner for a bit and school psychology in schools, and then become a professor or maybe straight to being a professor and doing research and creating things that way. But when I really started looking at what existed for educational games, cause I wanted to pick something to study for my dissertation, as an educator, I saw a few problems first, that mostly educational games are really shallow out there. And then you found a really good educational game that was this fragmented experience. And so I kind of accidentally had developed a mental model of what a great educational game should look like by linking all of my learning around what schools need and what the learning theory is to my experiences gaming. And so when I realized that didn’t exist, it was really, well, I guess it needs to exist. So I was an educator, I had run another business before, just a small business doing photography and I did that from undergrad to during grad school as well. And that gave me a lot of skills as well, to feel like I can solve problems, but running a service business is very different than creating a high tech startup, making an intense educational video games . So, I had some skills I had to learn a lot more. And so I started recruiting co-founders at first, we actually put up an internship program. I didn’t really know how to get started on making a video game . So we just joined a game making club on campus and then sort of recruiting people to be interns found some co-founders out of that process instead that were just too phenomenal just to be interns. And so started building things. We first, in 2014, ran a Kickstarter to just support making an initial beta version of it. And that got our first couple of people paid, not me. I was kind of working on my dissertation, but not really doing that for a , for that kind of year, while I was still enrolled in school. And then 2015, we got our first round of funding after what we had built from the Kickstarter and kind of showing that as a prototype, getting some initial validation there and started building out from there. The first thing we did is we realized that we needed to make things a little smaller for our first project to really get feedback on the game , play how fun it was, what those cycles were like. So we made a small version of some of the gameplay that it’s been a big game title online. We made something called, Tideway Ecology First, and we sold that on STEAM to not just educators, in fact, mainly millennials, just people who wanted to play a fun science nerdy game . So now we’re probably at about 30,000 people who have purchased that with a 43% upsell rate for expansion packs. And that got us a lot of early experience, some initial revenues of validation, and then we’ve gotten grants with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education for some more funding. And then that kind of brings us to today, which is where we are. We’re really starting to just commercialize out of betas and pilots and actually getting the full school product sold to people to really use at a wider scale of XDR . So it’s been a long journey to get there. Things like this definitely takes some time. James Di Virgilio: 13:45 Absolutely. And if you could go back and give yourself advice, what are a couple of words of wisdom you would have given yourself a here’s what the next five or six years are going to look like, focus on these things, or don’t worry so much about these things. What would be some of those nuggets of wisdom? Lindsey Tropf: 13:59 I think a lot of it are things that I’ve just learned about maybe our customers and our niche originally, I was actually thinking that we would start by selling to consumers and then switch to schools later. And then we realized that the reverse made more sense, but there’s a lot of kind of unique things to our company and why that is the education market and stuff that wouldn’t necessarily be that useful as just general advice. So, there’s a lot that we’ve just learned about our customer segments . So I suppose I could have done a lot more customer discovery interviews from the very beginning to maybe figure some of that out a little faster and stuff so that, because we’ve had to make a lot of changes to the product since we started with a consumer focus and we switched to a school focus and I thought, okay, we’ll make some teacher tools, but it’s ended up being a lot more changes than we originally realized that to make that transition for how we were originally thinking of it. And that’s my very applicable advice, even though I, you know, an education person with tons of experience and thought I knew enough about it still going out and doing a lot of customer discovery interviews. And I had mainly focused on parents actually thought we were going to sell to consumers at first and schools later, I , I should have interviewed school people even earlier in the process. And maybe we would have figured some of that out and could have cut a few iterative cycles that have taken us some time out of the process and gotten here faster. James Di Virgilio: 15:11 Yeah, I think flexibility is definitely one of the most important things for an entrepreneur is you undertake a task, you have a plan of action and you recognize that maybe I need to make some alterations to this plan and that sort of a lifelong adjustment as we look into the future, we look into this year, right? Your first time being commercially available to schools, so to speak, you’ve obviously been available in other formats. There are lots of competitors in the space. Are there any competitors trying to do a massive online player game like yours? Lindsey Tropf: 15:36 Not really. And there was something that got released recently from the people who made ABC Mouse. So they did actually release a multiplayer and for the gamer lingo and MMO RPG is the same type of game here, but they’re targeting younger students starting at about eight years old and more towards consumers. I imagine that they will do some for schools, but our design is just very different too , in terms of our focus on inquiry, exploration based problem solving. But I just very rarely see other people have, there are a few competitors that are maybe targeting similar demographics in terms of middle school science and meeting the science standards that we all have very different approaches, but I definitely respect the work they’re doing too. So I think our competitors are more along that line. Like other people who are maybe making platforms, either pulling in different games to make it easier for teachers to use 20 or 30 different games in their classrooms on a single platform or things like that that are work. Other people are doing too,` so regularly talk to the founders of those competitors, which is always interesting because we’re also just trying to move the whole industry forward together too , because there’s so much potential that we all see for what educational games can do and offer teachers that it’s nice to even share with your competitors. James Di Virgilio: 16:49 Yeah. It’s interesting to be in one of the largest industries in the world, and yet you really are in a frontier market, but you’re trailblazing. You’re doing something that has not really been done, which is obviously very exciting. And looking into the future, what has to go right in the next couple of years for this to become what you want it to become for you to say, this is exactly what I envisioned, what needs to happen. Lindsey Tropf: 17:07 We’re not going to reach my full vision in the next couple of years, but our next steps that we’re really focused on are really the live implementations in schools, because we have people purchasing for next year right now. So we have some larger deployments and some smaller ones scheduled for this coming year from working with an educational service agency that serves 59 school districts in Washington state to small private schools here in Buffalo. And so, really for us right now, it’s about making sure that that implementation process is as smooth as possible. So that just the realities of when kids in a classroom with a teacher are using it, that it doesn’t have a lot of friction for them. And that there’s just not a bunch of unforeseen issues coming up and I’m sure there will be. So we really need to knock those out and prove it as quickly as possible when we hear feedback or anything that’s frustrating people around the process, unless it’s frustrating, just because it’s good learning sometimes that happens. But really, that’s what I’m really focused on right now is we need that to go really well. And then we’ll start taking our next steps on kind of the full vision of what this company is going to be is not only a video game or we’re making science content, but partnering with third parties to use this as an experiential learning platform, that people can start putting their own content on and remixing it in a variety of ways. And that’s not going to be the next couple of years. So, we’re never going to get there unless the next couple years work and go strongly. We prove out our use case with science teachers in the country right now and then we can start building out to some of those longer term visions that we have. James Di Virgilio: 18:29 No that’s right. The greatest journeys, the beginning continue one step at a time, right? As a last closing thought, what is some advice you would give to some aspiring entrepreneurs regardless of their age, whether they’re starting a second career or third career, or if they’re middle schoolers , what would you tell them, hey, if you’re going to become an entrepreneur view life this way or pursue things this way? Lindsey Tropf: 18:46 I think there’s probably two things that I often see that I think would be helpful for people to understand better. The first is really perspective taking. When you think about things like customer discovery and having these conversations with customers, there’s so many people that are still in love with their own idea, and certainly I am in love with what we’re building, but actually being able to take the perspective of customers, of partners and using that to design something and having empathy for their experiences. And I think that, that is something that has been immensely helpful for us, just my understanding of those individuals that we’re interacting with and how we can make their lives easier. And I really enjoy the authentic relationships that I have with educators because of that. And I just see a lot of entrepreneurs that are trying that classic sense, create this reality distortion field around themselves and just push this thing through, regardless of these other people’s needs. And that’s not really the way most businesses actually succeed. You need to have that empathy and perspective taking of the people that you’re trying to fill a need for in a true sense, not just trying to shoe horn, what you want to do into their world. And so I think that’s just a really important perspective to take when you’re doing that. And then I guess on the other side of things is also just focusing on creating something of value and learning some of those skills yourself to make things happen. I just talked to a lot of people who are super excited about an idea and don’t necessarily have any skillsets brings us able to make that happen, and they’re trying to get co-founders to come join or people to work for them. And that’s really challenging unless you have something really strong to bring to the table. And so, generally I have to help people kind of explore that a little bit or push back on what you can bring to the table and that may be the business sales side, but make sure that you understand what that really means in early stage startup too. Which is going to be again, a lot of perspective, taking a customer discovery and that it’s actually moving you forward in a significant way that it’s worth everyone’s time. It’s working on a team with you. James Di Virgilio: 20:39 She is Lindsey Tropf, the founder and CEO of Immerse Games, ABD and education Lindsay , thanks so much for joining us, fascinating to learn all about what you’re doing and what you’re working on. And we certainly here at Radio Cade wish you nothing but success here in the future. Lindsey Tropf: 20:52 Thanks so much. I hope to make it back to Gainesville soon and see what’s going on at Cade, I’m glad I got to experience some of the new buildings before we left. James Di Virgilio: 20:59 Things are going really well and we love to have you back for the listeners out there that don’t know, Lindsey has been immensely helpful with our educational programming, and we’re certainly thankful for that Lindsey and we miss you. We know you’re in Buffalo, enjoying the lovely summer weather up there, but we look forward to seeing when you come back. Lindsey Tropf: 21:11 Thanks so much, have a wonderful afternoon. James Di Virgilio: 21:14 You too, for Radio Cade I’m James Di Virgilio. Outro: 21:18 Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support, Liz, Jist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and vendor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme, Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song, featuring violinist, Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Dr. Rich Patton, MD, grew up in the small town of Wahoo, Nebraska where the town doctor clearly had a better life than he did as a child farm hand. That inspired Rich to eventually go to medical school and to become a pathologist. From there he saw how many patients got treated unnecessarily for sepsis – blood infection – and he was pretty sure he knew why. So, he invented the SteriPath, a device that virtually eliminates false positive diagnoses in blood cultures. *This episode was originally released on April 26, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Randy Scott: 0:38Hello, for those of you expecting the velvet voice of Richard Miles, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is Randy Scott, your guest host today for Radio Cade. I’m here today with Dr. Rich Patton , MD out in Seattle. And he’s the inventor of the SteriPath blood collection device. Hi, Rich, are you doing today? Dr. Rich Patton: 0:59As pleased to say, life has been very good to me and continues to do so. Randy Scott: 1:06I appreciate you making some time here. So just to start things off, why don’t we take a minute or two for our listeners if you can explain the SteriPath, you know, pretty basic terms, what the SteriPath does and how it benefits patients. Dr. Rich Patton: 1:21The SteriPath, instrument essentially replaces and does away with false-positive blood cultures. How does it do this? The process is to use on needle, which goes into a vein and a vein then are a conduit for putting blood into a culture vial, and that’s the way it has been for 50 years. You know what goes into, in most cases, a vein which then directs blood into a bottle with medium, and that process passes a skin biopsy into the culture bottle and that is where our large portion of the contamination occurs. What SteriPath does is divert very first portion of blood from a vein and sequesters it, and that being done, the blood is directed past that sequester and into the bile of medium. So it’s a very simple process and simple to understand, and that’s, what’s the beauty of it is. It’s something that is very doable, should be done worldwide. A lot of expenses and patient success and the patient safety is, has moved greatly ahead was this type of blood culture procedure. Randy Scott: 2:45So Rich, that’s interesting. So you’re trying to avoid these false positives in blood cultures, maybe a little bit more background for me and the listeners on what are the medical uses for a blood culture? Why would a blood culture be taken in the first place? Dr. Rich Patton: 3:00Blood cultures are taken when people have high fevers or maybe become systemic and ill with not only a high fevers, but increased heart rate, and no symptoms are present than a blood culture is ordered and it takes about 24 to 48 hours to get result. And that result is something that hides the therapy, antibiotic treatment, part of this. So that’s the way it begins. And that’s taking it to the point where our culture, our shows and our organism that is a pathogen and it needs to be taken care of. Randy Scott: 3:37A false positive means that they’ve detected what they think is an infection and there’s not really an infection there, I guess. And so then they’re going to administer antibiotics when the antibiotics aren’t actually needed. Is that kind of how it goes? Dr. Rich Patton: 3:50Yes, that’s right prior to the use of the SteriPath, about half of the blood cultures that show positive are false positives and that results in unnecessary antibiotics and increase in blood tests increase in images. And all of this is not good for the patients who are put in the health care system. Unnecessary antibiotics are ended up being a different issue and America and the world. Randy Scott: 4:18And so how does a false positive come to happen and take place? I mean, why, why would that occur? It seems like it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out if, you know, worked in a hospital lab or something, but obviously it happens a lot. So how does that actually occur? Dr. Rich Patton: 4:33What we have discovered is that a false positive results from small scan piece being dislodged from the skin, the blood drawn is obtained. And if using the SteriPath, that scan piece is diverted into a sequester area. I’m just not going to enter the bloodstream. That is a very simple approach. And that’s a simple solution to the problem. And I have been told by a lot of people that, you know , why didn’t I think of that? It simply gets rid of the piece of tissue, which has defending a skin residing organisms. That’s once the sterile pads in place, the antibiotics therapy is started right after the blood culture has been drawn . And physicians can be positive about being treating aggressively on the case. Without this diversion technique, about half of the blood cultures that are, could grow some organisms, those are getting residing organisms that are normal and need, no , no treatment, but it takes a while beyond that to make a, to make a , a , uh , a blood culture result known takes off in 48 hours. Before the true nature of that infection is understood. Randy Scott: 6:05Okay. So I think I can kind of picture this in my mind. So normally they go, they take the blood sample, the needle goes in, and of course the needle is a circle of metal that kind of cat captures the, like the little tiny miniature pipe. And it captures a little chunk of skin before it gets to the blood and that skin then has the bacteria on it. So that makes sense. So the SteriPath then it sounds like is taking that little plug of skin and it’s setting it off to the side and only the blood then flows instead of the blood plus that little piece of skin is that right? Dr. Rich Patton: 6:40That’s right on. Randy Scott: 6:42Great. So yeah , you are practicing doctor and you came up with this idea about maybe let’s step back in time, a little bit curious, just how you came, be a doctor, you know , where did you grow up and what led you down the path of being a physician? Dr. Rich Patton: 6:58Oh , that’s , that’s a good one. I grew up in a small town in Eastern Nebraska about 3,500 people from the best farm plan in the world. And one person that got my pension , which was a physician there. His name was Dr. French. And I found him to be someone who was articulate, who was calm, who was well dressed and was very, very kind person. And I’d have to admit that appeared to be prosperous. So it was a combination of all those things that made me look at medicine as a good career for me. So I would say yes, he was the biggest influence on me. And I had a lot of experience with being a farm hand and a ranch hand. And I certainly didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life. So I ended up going to undergraduate school and eventually medical school. Randy Scott: 8:00Okay. So is this Dr. French? Was he like your family doctor? Dr. Rich Patton: 8:04Yes, he was, yeah . Randy Scott: 8:06Okay. Nebraska probably didn’t have very many doctors I’m guessing. Dr. Rich Patton: 8:10There were two doctors there that were physicians . I think you mentioned that one of the things that you thought I should let you know about is what other people influenced me in that town . And I have to tell you this, that person that I looked up who beyond this position was my mother. And she was born in a sod house in Nebraska. Became to first of a large family to go to college and she was just a super professional with grade school kids. With first grade. Um, she was somebody who I was pleased with students that did well, and she had great empathy for those that struggled . And my mother died and there was a funeral and an older man than me came up to me and said, gee, I was in shock when your mother died. I knew her as a beautiful woman. And indeed she was, and then recently, maybe a year ago, a woman about 45 years old introduces me , she was living in Omaha at that time. And she asked me, are you in relationship to mrs. Patton ? And I told her that I’m her son. And she told me of families , that she knew that my mother was teahcing and she told me that she was a beloved person in a small town. So I think of her often. And I’m trying to think about how she handled her life. Randy Scott: 9:29Oh yeah . So from a sod house to a prosperous doctor in one generation, that’s pretty good. That’s great. So you obviously went to medical school, but you’re now a pathologist, right? So I know what a pathologist is, but I’m not sure if our listeners will . So why don’t you describe for us what a pathologist is and why a pathologist would be the type of doctor that would invent a device like the SteriPath? Dr. Rich Patton: 9:54Well , first of all, pathologists are in general, considered a doctors , doctor. Doctors see patients and to treat them, they know they have to get tests done from blood tests to sometimes obtaining small pieces of tissue for analysis. For example, if someone has a lump in the breast, a needle might be put into that lump and then given to a pathologist to make a diagnosis of benign or malignant. And the pathologist handle all that type of work pending receiving, not just biopsies from breasts, but also many biopsies of the GI tract and so on. And then additionally, the clinical side of the pathology work is to make sure that laboratory work is accurate and up to date. So that is the relationship that it was always just have with clinical areas when they need this kind of help. Also, the relationship becomes one that now there are pathologists who are experts with liver disease, somewhat gastrointestinal disease, somewhat skin disease, skin , tumors, and so on. All those have been , become the system, whereas handling systems becoming more and more specialized. In other words, doctors, as I just mentioned, concentrate in these various areas. Again, liver, lung, brain, GI tract, on and on , there are specialists in pathologists that are confined their practices, those specialized areas. Randy Scott: 11:32So I guess if you’re used to dealing with needle biopsies than you’re used to the idea of pieces of tissue stuck in a needle. So I guess this idea made sense to you that way, too, that you were perhaps sensitized to think in that direction? Dr. Rich Patton: 11:45The fact that when needle biopsies go through skin or sampling tissue, for example, liver or thyroid. What happens with that needle is that when the skin is punctured , the needle actually cuts off a small portion of skin, which ends up in the specimen that is submitted for examination. So a common thing that would happen is just say that someone was doing needle procedure and the thyroid gland, what I might see or another pathologist is not only a piece of your thyroid, but also a small piece of skin that would have been dislodged by any needle, puncture and thyroid . Randy Scott: 12:26Okay. So anyway going back, I guess the way this kind of played out. So you kind of recognize this issue about the little piece of skin that gets caught in there. It causes these false positives and therefore the unnecessary use of antibiotics. So you’d identified the problem and the source of the problem, I guess I’d say. And then the actual product itself, how far along did you take that on your own? And at some point, obviously you’ve partnered up with someone to help commercialize the products, or how did that part of the story play out? Dr. Rich Patton: 12:58Well, what happened initially was not as I’m serving these fragments and checking to see if these pieces of tissue that , uh , contained in. And that was something that initiated in my laboratory and showing the test of getting rid of the skin piece , decreased our contamination rate by 50%, which was astonishing because over time, small increments, terminated tests improving, and nobody had come on anything at all in that range. So what I did initially after that was to encourage another pathologist in Seattle area to run the same test that I had done in his result was the same contamination rate decreased by 50%. So at that point, we knew that we had a new procedure that was going to affect blood culture globally. And at that point I started up a business with our CEO and other people, to build advice that would capture these skin pieces and not them get into the vessels that have culture medium in them. And that took a lot of engineering, a lot of testing. And that’s where we are now is we’ve shown that using that approach is revolutionary for the blood culture test and is something that we’re working on beyond the stage , but also kind of a lot of intellectual property to cover our device. Not only to use all around the world, Canada, Europe, Japan, on and on and on. Randy Scott: 14:37Great. So products actually being used in hospitals right now and basically saving lives today, right? Dr. Rich Patton: 14:44That’s right. And saving a lot of money for hospitals and the healthcare system. Hospitals save money by fewer tests. It’s very good for patients since cultures that are contaminated often result in unnecessary antibiotics and increased stays in the hospital and puts them at risk for developing hospital acquired infection . Randy Scott: 15:09Tell me some more about that. So I would, it’s just a layman. I would think that obviously, if I run a blood culture, I get a false negative. In other words, I, blood culture says there’s no infection, but there really is. So I don’t treat the patient. Obviously I understand how that’s bad for the patient. It seems to me like a , just a layman that a false positive wouldn’t be a big deal. So maybe somebody gets antibiotics and there’s probably some expense associated with the antibiotic, but how does inappropriate antibiotic use actually harm patients? Dr. Rich Patton: 15:42What happens is patients end up with unnecessary antibiotics, unnecessary blood and fluid tests, fewer imaging procedures, both positive can increase hospital stays, and there’s potential there for acquiring the hospital infections. Overall expenses go up just because of the involvement of medical staff and so on. It’s a big issue to let this go on. I feel like it’s not going hard as , as fast as it is growing because it’s sloppy medicine to let this blood culture contamination go on in our country and worldwide. Randy Scott: 16:20So basically the idea is that they’re getting the antibiotic treatment, they’re going to spend an extra couple of days in the hospital and other bad things might happen to them during that time. Great. So obviously you’re a physician. You come up with this idea for this new product. You’re not a marketer or whatever, but you’ve, I think remained involved with the company as it’s gone to market with the product some . So what’s been maybe the most surprising thing to you as a physician inventor . And what’s been the most surprising thing to you about the business and commercial side of things. Dr. Rich Patton: 16:54What has struck me is that this product that we have works very well and as a level of improvement compared to the previous way of doing things is quite encouraging and pleased to see that this has done regularly now, but I have been very disappointed that it’s not catching on sooner because of the reason, so we’ve already discussed. Everybody should have this done tests, not just locally or in United States, but it should be something done and this blood culture test worldwide. Randy Scott: 17:26So why wouldn’t every hospital just adopt it immediately? It seems like it’s much better for the patients. So is there some particular reason it’s not obvious that this is a harder decision for a hospital. Dr. Rich Patton: 17:40There are a number of reasons why this has gone not as quickly as we hoped. You have to understand that the blood culture procedure has not in 50 years and not change in a significant way for five decades. And when we start talking about this, a lot of people think, Oh, we don’t really have to deal with this in a hurry, but we’ll probably take care of it, someday. There reason for that is part of this reason I should say is that the test change involves multiple individuals and on healthcare chain all the way from the chief executive officer to the person who investigates the tests and in a way that how it’s going to cost them. And it turns out that any institution this has been successful has been one individual who’s taken the leadership, getting it done and getting this right and changing procedures all the way from the emergency department to the critical care area. All of those individuals that are involved need to be trained. And it’s just a big job to get that done. So those are some of the reasons why it’s been slower to be adopted than we had hoped for. Randy Scott: 18:56There’s a author you may be familiar with, Nicholas Taleb that written a couple of books, “Black Swan Antifragile.” He actually makes a point that we hear echoed through the voices of inventors like you all the time, but he makes the point that the things that have been unchanged the longest are in fact, the hardest things to change. So an example, he gives us that if you tried to innovate around the fork and spoon, it would probably be very difficult to get people to change because the fork and spoon have been the same for generations and generations. On the other hand, to get people to accept innovation around their smartphone is really easy because they expect it to change all the time. And they’re already kind of preprogrammed per change. That sounds like the dairy path, a little bit victim of that, but the way the blood cultures have been taken and process has been the same for so long. It’s maybe not an area where the clinicians and hospitals are that interested in even considering change. Dr. Rich Patton: 19:56Yeah, absolutely. You hit that right on the nail. I think what is waiting for this to suddenly become an improvement that will be overwhelming in terms of the obviousness very significant primarily on a patient’s safety level, more than anything else. We don’t know how many patients end up being killed by a false positive . I’m sure it’s probably in the hundreds and maybe even thousands annually in the U.S. and as I say, that part of that has never really been studied in a way, and it’s very difficult to do that, but even if it’s one person in the whole United States, everybody’s saving money. And if you have a straight path, a pathway on taking care of patients, you’re doing a good service, good patient safety that we all should, we all should be, acutely aware of it. Randy Scott: 20:45You didn’t set out in life, it doesn’t sound like to be an inventor, but you became one. Any thoughts for other folks, maybe like you, that don’t think of themselves as inventors, but they have a great idea to make the world better. Any parting ideas or words of wisdom for somebody like that? Dr. Rich Patton: 21:03I was thinking about this and what would I do to describe someone who let’s say that we’re talking about physicians. The best physicians that I know were, and are truly interested in their jobs. As I mentioned earlier, life has been good to me and part of which was being a pathologist and these days there are great options of medicine that are mind -bending, a number of specialties, researchers, educators, executives , just unlimited possibilities for people to work in medicine. And I would tell anybody who is interested in medicine, that you should find your niche in medicine, where you belong and you’ll do well. Randy Scott: 21:52Great. Okay. Well, thank you very much for your time here today. I appreciate it. And if people want to learn more about SteriPath, they can just go to www.SteriPath.com to learn more. Outro: 22:06Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and vendor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme, Tracy Columns for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song, featuring violinist Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Gainesville, Florida, home to the Cade Museum, is a university town famous for being the home of nine members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Thanks to technology to harness their creativity, a fresh crop of Gainesville musicians are using their music to bring comfort and joy during troubled times. This is the story of 25 musicians with Gainesville connections, collectively known as Band Together, and their collaboration on a music video that has brought relief to thousands of music lovers and ordinary people during the COVID-19 pandemic. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace James Di Virgilio: 0:38 For Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio. The mission of the Cade includes not only technology, but also arts. And within that, especially music. Past entrepreneurs and scientists who have been guest on this show where musicians, including Robert Cade himself. Today, we are joined by three musicians, Bob McPeak, Rob Rothschild , and Chris DeMakes. They’re here to tell us about the technology and the creativity behind the collaborative made at home music videos that certainly are proliferating in the age of COVID-19. They’re part of the amazing tradition of Gainesville, Florida music, a university city that is part of the story of Tom petty and the Heartbreakers, the Eagles Bo Diddley, Stephen Sills, the Motels, Less Than Jake, Sister Hazel, River, Phoenix, Against Me, Minnie Riperton, and many more. 25 musicians from Gainesville recently joined together, calling their band, Band Together, to make a music video of a song called “On the Other Side”, which has been generating quite a bit of attention. Welcome to the show Bob, Rob Rothschild, and Chris DeMakes Bob McPeak: 1:43 Hi. Great to be here. Thank you, James. James Di Virgilio: 1:45 Now, Bob, you started this project Band Together, and you’re also an example of someone who is both scientist and musician. Bob McPeak: 1:52 That’s right. Although a lot of people who know me as a musician don’t know that I am a social scientist. I received a PhD from Ohio state university in social psychology way back in 1976. James Di Virgilio: 2:06 And how did you wind up getting into music, social psychology to music, or do those two overlap? It seems sort of like a leap? Bob McPeak: 2:12 It is an unusual combination, I think, although certainly not unprecedented. Uh , I started playing guitar when I was 14 and I got hooked on it and played in bands all the way through college. But at the end of my third year of graduate school, I was picked by the psychology department to go to this place in Greensboro, North Carolina called the Center for Creative Leadership. And one of the things I did while I was there was to take a career workshop from the vice president of the Center for Creative Leadership, whose name is David Campbell. He was a really remarkable guy. You may have heard of the Strong Campbell Vocational Interest Blank, which is a psychometric instrument that’s supposed to help you determine a career choice. And he did a career workshop and we went through all these exercises and every exercise that we did told me that what I really wanted to do was make music. And I took that to heart, but I was so far along that I went ahead and finished my PhD, but didn’t pursue a job. Instead, I moved with a friend, actually my, a musician that I was playing music with, whose name is Rick Kesner. And at the end of 1976 in November, he and I moved to Gainesville. I’d never been to Gainesville, but it seemed like a really cool place from what I knew about it. And he had been there and spoke highly of it and removed here. And we had a business plan, which was to play music and to start a used record store. And that became Hide and Seek Records shortly after moving here and not too much longer after that, I cobbled together whatever recording equipment I could afford at the time in built a studio in the house that I was living in. And that was the beginning of Mirror Image Studios. James Di Virgilio: 3:52 So you go from having a PhD, to starting a recording studio. What did your family and friends think about that ? Bob McPeak: 4:01 Uh, at that point, my mother was no longer alive. I’m not sure what she would have thought. My dad was a pretty laid back, do what you want kind of guy. He’d never really pressured me. And he seemed okay with it. If he had objections to it, he didn’t voice them. My friends, at least the ones in the psychology department and wondered if I had lost my mind. And to be honest, there were times when I had my own moments of doubt, but then I would go back to the studio and I would get involved in some kind of a recording project or a song that would just move me to tears or touch my heart or make me feel happy. And though I really enjoyed psychology. I enjoyed the research component of it. I never really got that kind of an emotional reaction to anything from psychology quite to that extent or quite that consistently. James Di Virgilio: 4:53 There’s so much of your story that I feel like is echoed through all of the people I’ve interviewed on Radio Cade . And there’s a boldness that it takes to follow what you’re truly interested in. And in your case, I think you have two things you’re obviously very interested in it . It sounds like you’ve done both of those now having a recording studio, especially one that was really one of the only ones in Gainesville at the time, had to have lent itself with you working with some very interesting people. What are some of the projects and who are some of the artists you’ve worked with? Bob McPeak: 5:20 Yeah, it was a long, long climb from being a pretty ill-equipped studio to becoming one of the better equipped studios in the region. So early on the first person that I worked with who’s gone on to any kind of major success or recognition would probably be a guy named J.D. Foster, who was the studio bass player in the early eighties and left town, moved to Los Angeles and took up playing bass for Dwight Yoakam and had a lot of success with that and now is a successful producer working out of Chicago. And he was one of the people I recruited to play on, “On the Other Side”, on the song, he played bass on it. I missed the Tom petty era. He was gone a couple of years by the time I got here, but I did have an opportunity to work with Bernie Leaden, one of the Eagles later on when he produced the project that the studio , uh, I recorded River Phoenix’s band, I recorded Bo Diddley in the nineties, Less Than Jake, Chris DeMakes is here from that band to talk to us. And he was also part of the band together project, a Sister Hazel in the 1990s, there was a kind of a golden era there in the 1990s when there were several bands that were signed out of Gainesville. James Di Virgilio: 6:29 So let’s talk about this current project today. You’ve worked on a lot of projects. You’ve done a lot of things in your life. COVID-19 hits. The world gets up ended, and you have this idea for Band Together. How did the idea come to you and why did you choose to pursue it? Bob McPeak: 6:44 Well, last summer I decided it was time for me now to really concentrate on my own music. I had such an education in songwriting and production by then in such a wide experience of seeing great people worked on the process and seeing the mistakes that other people made. So I retired from Heartwood and refurbish the studio in my house and set about writing songs. And I was keeping my ears open as I do to just what people say or I’ll hear something on the radio that is a catch phrase . And that’s sort of the nugget that forms the idea for a song. And then eventually slowly, sometimes more quickly, other times the whole thing kind of coalesces and the song takes form in the melody and the chords and the words. This one came together pretty quickly. And I heard a lot of people saying, well, I’ll see you on the other side. And that just seemed like a hopeful phrase. And I was in the mood to have some hope as I think everyone was. So I set about recording and I recorded it and I said, well, you know, that was fun. And there it is, there’s me playing all the guitars and me doing all the vocals. And on the other hand, I know all these amazing musicians that I’ve worked with. Why not see if they’re interested in making a love letter from Gainesville to the community of Gainesville, to the people who are out there, the healthcare workers and the frontline workers who are delivering packages to us or other things that put them in the path of potential exposure in danger. So I put out the word and send it out to, I don’t know, 30, 40, 50 people that I thought might be interested in . I thought would be great contributors in to my delight and surprise. Many, many of them said, yes, this all star cast, which believe me is much better than I would have been able to do on my own. The parts they gave me were so thoughtful or aware that this was going to be one component in a bigger picture and the tracks I got, even though they weren’t necessarily hearing the other players because they’re only working with the little guitar and vocal track that I gave them and they would leave space for other people. So then I had to put all this stuff together and they would send me their digital files and I would drop them onto the track and listen to them and I would go, wow, that is so cool, I would have never thought of anything that brilliant or that would have that kind of texture. So I have Michael Ward Bergman . Who’s just a brilliant accordion player. Who’s collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma and lots of other really amazing musicians. And it’s just a virtuoso of the accordion. Um , my friend David Beatty, who , who helped with the conception and the production of the song plays, there’s a thing called a bowed psaltery , which is this triangular instrument that you play with a horse hair bow, as well as the standard instruments, like an electric guitar. So we end up with Nancy Luca , who I think a lot of people in Gainesville know is a great lead guitar player who is from Gainesville, but now lives in California playing this guitar solo at the emotional peak of the song. And she comes in blazing with this guitar and then throws it to the accordion player. So he ended up going electric guitar to accordion, which violates some kind of rock-n-roll rule somewhere. But that’s my favorite moment. I think on the whole video, it’s just really cool. James Di Virgilio: 9:56 So you put together this project where you have all of these creative artists working together, they send the files to you. You then put that together and you create both a video and an audio track. And then you have this completed project. The , “On the Other Side”, by a group that came together, thus Band Together, how proud were you when it was done? Bob McPeak: 10:17 I think much of the credit goes to the players and the singers. And that includes people that are frankly, above my pay grade. Ken Block from Sister Hazel, Chris DeMakes from Less Than Jake, Ritchie Stanno, who’s off making albums with people like Tony Levin and Omar Hakim. He’s just a really brilliant guitar player. Jacob Lawson, a really fabulous violin player, who by the way, as the violinist on the Cade theme , I’m doing disservice cause I’m not mentioning every one of the 25 musicians, but the people who participated in this are all just fantastic people in wonderful musicians. And so I’m proud that they would have enough respect for me and for the community of Gainesville that they would have chosen to participate in this. James Di Virgilio: 11:03 And one of artists is here with us on the podcast today. Chris DeMakes from Less Than Jake. Chris, tell us about meeting Bob and your early days of Less Than Jake. Chris DeMakes: 11:13 Well, I had heard the name Bob McPeak . My uncle went to UF from 83 to 87 and he had recorded a demo for his college band and Bob was running Mirror Image out of his house at that time. So I remember having the Mirror Image cassette and it said recorded by Bob McPeak and I get to Gainesville in 91 to go to college, attend UF and would have been about four years later, we went to record our first record Pez Cor in 1995 and lo and behold, we get to the studio and there’s the man, the myth, the legend himself, Bob McPeak . And he engineered in essentially produce that first record, cause we certainly didn’t know what the hell we were doing. James Di Virgilio: 11:49 Yeah, what’s it like to produce your first record? Take us back there for a second and put yourself back in that 1995 mindset you’re breaking into the scene. You’re going to record a record. What did you know about recording a record? What were your thoughts or ideas? Chris DeMakes: 12:02 I mean, it was kind of like when you see TV shows and they’re recording a band, it’s, everyone’s set up in one room, the singer doesn’t even have a mic stand he’s just singing into a microphone and there’s an engineer in the other room recording the band and that’s how everyone thinks you record, right? So we get in the studio and we’re thinking, Oh, this is going to be like a live show, put up some mics . And someone’s going to record us in the other room and magically, we’re going to have a recording and we were green. We didn’t know anything. So we get in there. And the only direction that we had were people like Bob them we’d recorded prior to Bob, the terms of a pro studio, Mirror Image was the first setting of that nature that we were ever in. So it was great. It was exciting. We were young, stupid and crazy. Bob can attest, I mean, we were for lack of a better word, we called ourselves punk rockers, the blue hair and the tattoos and the drinking and doing other things that you do in Gainesville and being young and silly. And Bob had to put up with our crap. James Di Virgilio: 12:54 And what did it feel like? Or what was it like when your first album comes out and all of the sudden Less Than Jake becomes a name people know. Chris DeMakes: 13:03 It was incredible. I mean, I remember being in Mirror Image in the main room and Bob throwing up a rough mix of the first track on our record, it was called “Liquor Store” and it was written about Gator Beverage in Gainesville. And I was blown away because I finally heard ourselves, albeit we were still very raw and still learning our instruments and learning how to sing. And this is before pro tools. We were cutting everything to tape, but I remember hearing it back and I felt I’m like, wow, there’s something here. It was put together better and sonically, it sounded better than our previous recordings. And it wasn’t very long after that Rock104 had a locals only radio show. It might’ve just been called locals only or something like that. And I was pulling out of park 16th, which is no longer there anymore. It was apartment complex where I live for years down on 16th and 13th, by Steak and Shake and I was got in my car and I was pulling out of the complex and turn Rock104 on and there , the song came on. It was the first time I ever heard us on the radio. Like total mind blown, like a month prior. I heard the rough mix, the Vader’s go up at Mirror Image that Bob did and a month or two later, I’m driving in my car and I hear it on the radio. And it was just like for a 20 year old kid, I, at that point I had made it. I could have quit at that point. For real. I felt like I made it like I’m on the radio. Are you kidding me? It was awesome. James Di Virgilio: 14:14 Yeah. That just seemed so incredible. Actually hearing you tell the story is great. I can feel the scene and how that must feel to get that notoriety and all of a sudden, like the fruits of all your labor, right? All your love, all your creativity gets played and then people can hear it. And I’m sure your friends thought that was probably the greatest thing ever, right? Chris DeMakes: 14:29 Yeah. Our friends that loved us and then there’s backlash. Cause it was like, you got played on Rock104 because we came from this punk rock thing where like, you couldn’t be on the radio. You were a sellout and all this other nonsense that I never bought into. But it was funny because you gotta remember back in 95, there was no satellite radio. There was no internet. If you got played on the radio, like it was a big deal. If you got on, that was a huge deal. Those were your two outlets to get known besides print, promotion, magazines and such. So, and it was “Liquor Store” was that same song. I was speaking of hearing that on the radio, as I was pulling out of the car , I just, I lost my mind. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. And it was from that moment that things really started to snowball with us. We had a record that sonically sounded good, more so than sonically sounded good. There was an energy captured and that’s Testament to Bob. Because again, we didn’t know what the heck we were doing. We just went in and we had this raw unbridled energy, kinetic, and crazy, frenetic. And we would go out and play these shows. And we were playing outside of Florida now and people were showing up and going crazy. And somehow Bob was able to harness that energy and we put Pezcore out the fans absolutely ate it up and loved it. James Di Virgilio: 15:34 That’s an amazing story of early, early success. I love origin stories, whether it’s a movie or real life and yours is certainly great, especially being from Gainesville. So let’s fast forward to now, how did you get involved in Band Together? And what was your side of the technology like? This is a project that requires, as you just mentioned, right? Modern use of technology versus the mid nineties where you had to be someplace physically to do anything. Chris DeMakes: 15:57 Oh yeah. This was 95. Bob would still be waiting for the first person to write them back. Snail mail in this project would have taken 10 years. It’s absolutely amazing what you’re able to do these days from your own remote location and studios . So Bob had contacted me pre-Coronavirus and all this stuff. He wanted to collaborate on some stuff. I think he’s trying to put together a solo record and Bob and I’ve always kept in touch over the years, but I said, sure, I’d love, love to write with you. And he sent me a couple of pieces of things. And then he hit me up and mentioned this project and asked if I would be a part of it. And I told him , absolutely I’m all in. And then he had sent the track over at some point and it kind of sat in my inbox for maybe a week or two. And then I saw a post online . Bob said, Hey, we’re going to wrap this up. If you haven’t gotten your parts into this, that , and that I had a kind of an Oh crap moment. And I was over in North Carolina visiting my mom and dad and I called Bob and I said, Bob, I don’t want you to think I’m not into this. I want to do it . I want to do. And he says, Oh, okay, well, here’s the lines I want you to sing. And I got home the next day and I tracked it in my home studio. I have a studio. I work in logic pro. So yeah, I sang my lines that Bob wanted me to sing and send it back to him. And then Bob said, I want you to do a video. I said, okay, I can do that. But I haven’t had a haircut in like three months. I looked terrible. So I’m gonna wear a hat in the video. I think I’m the only person with a hat. So , uh, did did the video. And I think the thing came out great. James Di Virgilio: 17:15 That’s really a fascinating tale of what can be accomplished really not a long time ago, right? 25 years ago, you come onto the scene and then today you’re able to record something by yourself, in a home studio, with the equipment, sync it up to others and get this fascinating results . Chris, thanks so much for taking some time to join your part of Band Together, as well as tell your story. It’s obviously great to have you as a contributor to a project such as this. And we look forward to seeing what happens in the future as it certainly seems like there’s a reason to believe that projects like these would continue even in a post-Covid world. Chris DeMakes: 17:48 Yeah, I think so. I think that this is kind of really, it’s done a number on a lot of people. I know I’ve gotten a lot of projects and different things done. It’s made me look within and figure out other things to do while I have downtime from being on the road cause our band is still touring act that’s out there six, seven, eight months out of the year so, I think these projects you’ll be seeing these for a long time to come. James Di Virgilio: 18:08 So let’s introduce Rob Rothschild now who played drums and percussion on the Band Together track recorded some of the vocalists and edited the video together. So you’ve done a lot on this project. Rob, tell us a little bit about your history. Are you from Gainesville? Are you full time musician? What’s the background? What brought you to where you are today? Rob Rothschild: 18:26 Well, it’s a long and sorted tale. My career in this world began as the guy in all the bands that I played with who could not only carry the gear, but who could figure out how to use it. And that soon led me into the recording business. And when I lived in New York city back in the seventies at the height of the punk rock movement, I worked at Do Art Film Labs in the sound department. And I got introduced to the whole motion picture sound world. And I did just about everything you could do in the post production world for audio, for films. And I also got involved in the shooting, some of the punk rock bands back then. So I got to shoot video and record Divo and , and Debbie Harry and deepen the scene. So it was really quite a baptism for me, but I got the Gainesville in the early eighties and I met Bob pretty early on. And since then, I’ve just , just been a joy for me to work with him on a variety of different projects, including back in the day when Mirror Images was in his house, as Chris was talking about. And just whenever I get a chance to work with Bob, it’s a joy and I’m just really privileged to do that. And so when he called me about this project “On the Other Side” and said, you know, he’s going to put together a variety of musicians to play the song I was all in. James Di Virgilio: 19:34 Now , Rob, in the eighties, you mentioned coming to Gainesville. So what was the technological scene music wise like in Gainesville, in the 1980s? Rob Rothschild: 19:43 Well, for live sound, people were carting around these giant speakers and these heavy mixing boards. And for recording, there was just a few studios in town and the main one was Mirror Image Studios, Bob’s studio. And I was a little bit less involved in the recording business back then, I was still doing some field recording for motion picture stuff, but you know, it was primitive back in the day there you had tape and razorblades and you had to worry about all kinds of things that were mechanical rather than digital wasn’t even invented them practically. And of course now, if nobody has a piece of tape anywhere. James Di Virgilio: 20:15 Do you view those days as the romantic days, there was a quality of them that you don’t have today or is today’s environment much better? Rob Rothschild: 20:23 Well, I’ve done a lot of recording back in the early days with just tape and a couple of tape recorders. And you know, that’s how the Beatles did it. They just had a four track machine for a lot of what they did. And so there’s something to be said for the spontaneity and fearlessness that’s required when you have very limited tools or painter with a limited pallet has to get creative and a band with a limited set of tools has to get creative. So I think that there was some really magic moments created based on that need. But now we have unlimited technical resources just about, I mean, if you can think of it, you can do it. Bob’s famous for fixing everyone’s performances. Now, we didn’t have that back in the day. You got to play until you got it right. And now I don’t think we’re losing any creativity, but we certainly can be much more methodical now. And we can fix things that we did that we couldn’t have fixed back in the day. So if you played your part now you could come back two months later and go, you know, I’m going to tweak one little thing and that would have been almost impossible back when there was tape and razorblades. James Di Virgilio: 21:23 That’s a really interesting thought in my mind actually goes to being a kid playing Nintendo, you couldn’t save your game, playing Nintendo. You had to beat the entire game in one take, or you were sort of dead and nowadays, right? You have like a million saved points in a way, that’s kind of what you’re saying is we have all these technological abilities to fix alter, edit change, get the perfect sound. It’s that’s interesting. It forces a different take. So with this Band Together project, what was the goal? The idea gets created. What is trying to be accomplished with a project such as this at a time, such as this? Rob Rothschild: 21:53 Well, initially we want it to be able to put something out that would give people a moment of respite and joy in a pretty tough time period. And our challenge was to do that in a way that was shareable everywhere. So we had to have video. And on my end, what I had to do is take all this contributed video and turn it into something that would tell the story of how hard it is and how hard it can be to be a frontline worker and how much joy we can as musicians, how much we can share. And that should be our mission. That’s what we do. We want to make people feel better. James Di Virgilio: 22:29 So you bring together 25 great musicians. You make a video, you want people to feel better. How do you get it out to them? What was the primary way to get people to see this or hear this or view this? Rob Rothschild: 22:40 Well, we connected with someone in town who has a channel, a video channel that’s called Music GMV and decided to post the video on their YouTube channel because they already have a bit of a following. And their mission was to share Gainesville based music, but the real way to do it in this day and age. And I remember Chris mentioned there was no internet back when his band had to do things. Uh, we just hoped that everyone would share it on Facebook in a big way, Instagram too. And that’s how one goes Pardon the pun viral these days is to have people like and share your work. So it’s very decentralized. James Di Virgilio: 23:16 And how has the response been? How successful was the social media share with a friend vitality ? Rob Rothschild: 23:21 Well, for a little effort that we put out here, I think we’re getting close to 12,000 views on YouTube. So that’s a metric that we like to look at, but really the real measure is what people have said to us and how they’ve expressed themselves after they’ve seen it. Some people said it brought them to tears and some people said that this changed their outlook for a moment in a dark time. And those are the real that we love to Read. We’re not trying to measure the smiles. We just would like to make some smiles. James Di Virgilio: 23:50 Yeah. I was thinking in my mind that views shouldn’t be the main metric in this situation, if you’re trying to bring about healing and restoration, the goal really is feedback and have people taking what you want from this and I’m sure that all of you feel really good about having people say, Hey, this really was a restorative thing for me. You know, it felt good. It brought joy to my life. Obviously I think we, as humans are realizing, there’s so many things in our lives that maybe we took for granted that mean a lot to us and certainly music has tremendous healing power and community power. And then those that can produce it are going to be able to bring that to us. Whether it’s been online concerts or viewings or a variety of other things that are there. And so certainly hats off to you and others who are creative, take your time and put these things together to give people these responses. Have there been any responses in general you can recall that have just really sort of taken you over the edge, just have really moved you? Rob Rothschild: 24:42 Sure. Several things have been written that really tugged at my heart strings. And they were usually about how we transformed a moment for someone who was really feeling bad or brought them to tears, or they said this was an amazing experience. And I’ll tell you that you can imagine that I have watched this video probably more than anyone in the world, because how many times did I have to look at it to edit it, but I still go back and play it. And it still gets me not because the video is so great, but because the feeling of all the musicians, the music, the song that Bob wrote is just so fantastic and so beautiful. And everyone’s contribution is so heartfelt that it just works. And that’s a rare piece of business to encounter when you’re not in a live performance, but you’re watching a video of us. And so I’m pretty proud of that. James Di Virgilio: 25:27 And it’s just a wonderful thing. I think Bob and Rob, I’m sure you’d both echo this. When you reach a point in your lives where you can do something like this to give back when you’re in a position to be a giver for those that need to receive something, as we’ve all been on both sides. And then this project “On the Other Side” by Band Together is something we’re finally going to play here on the podcast. We spent an entire podcast talking about it, but it’s also in video format. Where can we find this on video? Rob Rothschild: 25:54 Probably the easiest way to do it would be to get on YouTube and type in either “On the Other Side” or music GNV in the search box for YouTube music GNV, that’s the channel we’re on. And you’ll see that video pop up right away and let’s hop in and take a listen now. And then afterwards, hopefully watch the video as well. Music Intro: 26:14 [ Instruments ] “On the Other Side” by Band Together Lyrics: 26:54 “The mornings are much darker since the clocks were set ahead The dawn is lost to shadow and I should be home in bed. But I wander through this quiet world, adrift in isolation Looking for a ray of hope in a desperate situation But I’ll be waiting with both arms open wide We’ll be stronger, grateful we survived When our mettle has been tested and our tolerances tried I’ll see you on the other side You went to war without a shield, the generals left you there The first line of defenders, disarmed and unprepared And you rush through busy, crowded wards with poison in the hallways And risk your life while we pretend that life’s the same as always We’ll all be waiting with both arms open wide You’ll be stronger, grateful to survive Let’s put aside our anger, reach across the great divide I’ll see you on the other side, I’ll see you on the other side Will we recognize each other behind the mask, beneath the glove? If we can’t hold one another, can we still hold on to love? For all the lives we sacrificed at the altar to our pride I’ll see you on the other side.” James Di Virgilio: 31:37 And that’s “On the Other Side” by Band Together. And that’s the song written by Bob McPeak produced by Bob, Rob Rothschild , David Beatty, and featuring the talents of 25 of Gainesville’s finest musicians. Thank you so much for being on Radio Cade today. Bob McPeak: 31:52 Thank you, James. James Di Virgilio: 31:53 We certainly enjoyed getting a chance to hear your story and hear this collaboration. For Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio. Outro: 32:00 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes’ host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed a Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

James Clement conducts research into anti-aging technologies. He has studied people over 110 years of age and has found a strong genetic connection to their super long lives. Yet, periodic environmental signals such as fasting and certain dietary supplements will prompt human cells to effectively cleanse themselves and recycle materials for energy. This causes cells, and thus bodies, to live longer. *This episode was originally released on September 25, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles, we’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:39 I’m going to live forever as a song from the musical fame, and if only that were true, but it turns out we can slow down some of the effects of aging and here to join me in my time machine thought capsule is, James Clemett, the CEO of Better Humans, a company that conducts research into longevity, disease prevention, and general human enhancement. Welcome to Radio Cade, James. James Clemett: 1:00 Thank you, glad to be here. Richard Miles: 1:01 So James, I’m not going to make you sing any songs from any hip musicals, probably to your relief, but I would like to have you start out by defining for us what anti-aging technologies are and what they actually do. And I’m going to ask my very first follow on question. Does this mean that we can live longer? Or does it mean we aren’t afflicted by the normal conditions that apply to aging people? James Clemett: 1:23 So the answer is yes to both of those things. We actually have longer living healthier people amongst us right now. I spent the last 10 years studying supercentenarians, and have met many women and men 106 , seven, eight years and older, all the way up to Morano in Italy who’s 117 who are still cogent, living by themselves, often cooking their own food, and cleaning their own homes. One gentleman at 109 had just driven from the Tucson area to Denver in a sports car for his daughter’s 80 something of birthday, a remarkable a feat for any elderly person, but at 109, amazing. So my initial quest was to figure out how these people live so long, how they do so in really great shape, and then to see what can we learn from that and apply to the rest of us who aren’t so lucky. Richard Miles: 2:17 So James, I’ll just ask a kind of a nerdy social science question. It sounds like there are enough supercentenarians so people not just a hundred, but a hundred what? James Clemett: 2:25 110. Richard Miles: 2:26 Okay. Are there enough of that population to study and make valid conclusions that study this? James Clemett: 2:32 That’s sort of debatable. Okay. So my mentor, George Church, one of the top geneticists in the United States, he’s at Harvard Medical School, he believes that you can discover rare phenotypes from even in of one . So a single person compared to everyone else’s genetics, you can tease out what the differences might be. And certainly in a small family, brothers and sisters and mom and dad, et cetera, that haven’t don’t have a similar phenotype. Then you have an even better group to compare. So a mother and a son let’s say who have protection against diabetes and can seemingly eat pure sugar and their blood sugar doesn’t rise at all, and in that same family are two type two diabetics. Like that’s a perfect scenario, tt’s actually one that I’m currently studying. But uh, other people, Craig Venter being on the other side of that coin and I’ve had meetings with him about this issue believes you need thousands, maybe tens of thousands of subjects, and unfortunately, the number of people who at any one given time are documented supercentenarians in the world is about 60. And the turnover unfortunately is pretty fast. Um , so in five years there’s basically a completely new group of 60 people, but that’s still a small number when you’re trying to tease out genetic variables, but we’ve actually been seeing some success in this. There are several scientists that spend their life focused on this and doing it near Barselli at Albert Einstein Medical School. Uh , Tom Pearls at Boston College are two of the leading experts in this field. And I based a lot of the work in my study on their past work. Richard Miles: 4:11 So this is something I think a topic that is fascinating to most people, you know, looking at these 110 plus people, and you read an interview with someone like this and you read of one characteristic or one habit they have and go, aha, there we go, you know, they drank whiskey every morning or such and such. How much of when you interview, you study these people, how much do you take into account their sort of environmental habits versus their genetic makeup? James Clemett: 4:34 Well, I came into this from the genetic side. So I had been on the board of directors of one of the first direct to consumer genetic testing companies, co-founded by George Church. George is a genetics professor, so we got together to start this study back in 2010, specifically, to look at the genetics. And even at that time, researchers from Europe had pretty much said that when it comes to supercentenarians, their ability to share this genetic information with family members, such as siblings, was 17 times higher than non-supercentenarians. So for example, a change in the genes that increase your chances of breast cancer, for example, is just a small order of magnitude, so it’s maybe a 30% increase. Here, we’re talking about a 1700 times increase percent increase. So 17 times greater chance of being a centenarian, if you have a close relative, who’s a supercentenarian. So it’s an amazing genetic advantage and we wanted to specifically focus on that. However, more relevant to your point is, in meeting the approximately 60 people of this age group that I did over a multiyear period. I can tell you that they come from Southern States, African-Americans whose parents were slaves. They come from recent Jewish immigrants, came to America, fleeing the Holocaust and Nazi Germany and became 110 year olds here. And I don’t think that it is an environmental issue. We’ve tried to talk to them about their diets, not just at 110, but what do they recall eating when they were growing up, et cetera, and of course these people born at the turn of the century between the 18 hundreds and the 19 hundreds, they weren’t eating McDonald’s and other fast foods, they didn’t have the luxury of these fantastically stocked grocery stores. So primarily they were doing what my grandparents did. I grew up on a farm and my grandparents lived right across the street from us and had a huge garden that they not only lived from in the summer, but then they canned all the vegetables for the winter and they had their own livestock. So they took that to a shop and had it butchered. And that’s what they ate from as well. This is the same thing you see in both blue zones and with these supercentenarians while they were growing up is that they ate very natural foods. Richard Miles: 7:00 If I understand correctly, your research has identified what’s going on at the cellular level and that relationship to aging. If you could walk me through a little bit, what you found dealing with inflammation with zombie cells, what do you think you’ve found is going on at the cellular level with regard to aging or coming up with therapeutic anti-aging medicines? For instance. James Clemett: 7:20 One of the things I did around 2013, I spent a year just looking at metabolism and how it’s tied into calorie restriction, the ketogenic diet, fasting, et cetera, and about 500 papers into that, I started connecting dots. And the dots all seem to lead to an intracellular pathway called M-TOUR. It’s a relatively new discovery from the 1970s based on bacterium that was found in the soil at Easter Island. And basically this complex that’s inside all of our somatic cells. So every cell that has a nucleus tells us whether the conditions are right environmental conditions for that cell to go through cell division and to produce proteins. And so, if any of these environmental conditions don’t meet the case, it stops that process and goes into recycling it’s existing proteins and organelles on pretty much a dysfunctional basis, meaning it will take misfolded proteins and high R O S reactive oxygen species producing mitochondria. Those are the bad mitochondria that are producing a lot of free radicals as they make the ATP that energizes the cell and through a process called autophagy. It will surround these with a membrane, bring them to the lysosome, which is filled with acid, and then dissolve these proteins and organelles back to their basic compounds to be recycled in the cell. So, it’s a very conserved process that goes all the way back to bacterium to allow the cell to survive hardship like a drought, food scarcity, not enough oxygen in the environment, different environmental triggers. But in humans, it very much tells the cell when it’s time to repair itself and when it’s time to make more of itself. This is at the heart of almost every anti-aging intervention we know of, including a lots of nutraceuticals. So a mega three Glucosomine ECG T , which is the extract from green tea, curcumin, lots of these things, suppress inventory and turn on autophagy and like most things in life, you don’t want it all one way or the other. So you can’t say, gee, I’ve read all these things that say fasting is really beneficial. I’m just going to fast for the rest of my life. I’m not going to eat anything that should be really beneficial, right? So instead you have to cycle these things back and forth. And whether it’s following how we evolved, which was there were droughts, there were winters, there were ice ages, all kinds of things which impeded our ability to supply ourselves with all the nutrients and oxygen and everything it needs. Humans we’re constantly going back and forth between feast and famine on a daily basis even. Richard Miles: 10:11 So stress, no stress, stress, no stress. And that’s, yes , kind of what keeps the cell healthy, or at least keeps it from doing bad things. James Clemett: 10:18 Well, it’s more that organisms have evolved to utilize these challenges. So by getting rid of the misfolded proteins and dysfunctional organelles that are inside the cells, it actually turned out that the cells would live longer, and in better health and that’s the organism as a whole would live longer. So, we interrupt that process at our own peril. And unfortunately, from about the mid 1800s on, we’ve made so many advancements in agriculture and industrial agriculture, producing food products, preserving them with refrigeration for example, being able to ship things all over the world, both because of shipping in airplanes, but also the logistics we have capable of now of just-in-time produce at any grocery store practically in the Western world. We basically find ourselves with no famine ever in the Western world here , foods that didn’t even exist in human history or have been modified through human effort. So if you look at old photographs, even Renaissance paintings of fruit, they don’t look much like our fruit now they’re really small, they were not really that great tasting. This is one of the reasons for example, apples were made into cider. Nobody ate an apple before the genetics were changed by human. Richard Miles: 11:36 47 different varieties right? James Clemett: 11:38 Yes, yes. And they’re filled with sugar and really delicious to eat. Unlike what was made in the 1700s, for example, and our founding fathers drank this low alcohol ale and cider, primarily because you didn’t have clean water. Richard Miles: 11:51 Right, right. James Clemett: 11:52 And to those products, they get boiled and then fermented, and those two processes is very protective against bacteria and other funk that would contaminate water and was found in groundwater. But we forget all this history and we forget how humans evolved. And we look at this abundance that we have now is just being normal and thinking that we just snack all day sitting at our desks, getting up only maybe to go to lunch that we’re not going to have any ill effects and I think this is one of the things I’ve seen from both studying the supercentenarians, looking at the people who live in the so-called blue zones or health oases and studying the intracellular mechanisms that I think are being triggered by those people who live in these areas and follow these different lifestyles that allows them to live so long and so healthy is that this inter autophagy coin, so to speak, with one on one side and one on the other is really one of the fundamental anti-aging principles that we know now. Richard Miles: 12:50 One of my theories about how this has gotten worse is whenever you get a package at home, with too much candy you got like, I know what I’ll do, I’ll bring it to work. Right? And so I place these to work in DC, I would never eat candy at home, but my golly theres a bowl of snickers there, and every time you go get a cup of coffee, you’re going to stop at least once and get a tootsie roll. James Clemett: 13:06 Yeah. And if you’re in a large office, I previously had a career as an international tax lawyer and a park Avenue firm. You can end up in a big enough organization that there’s a birthday or two every day. Richard Miles: 13:17 Oh sure every day yeah, every day. James Clemett: 13:18 There’s always cake there. Richard Miles: 13:18 Yeah you never have to bring your lunch right, there is something. Um , James, let’s talk a little bit about the business or the commercialization aspect of the technologies that you’re working on. People like movie stars and celebrities have always been dabbling in anti-aging processes for a long time have had access to all the latest treatments, some of which are probably work and some are quacks, but you want to actually make some of these technologies more available to just regular folk , lower costs. What does that look like? You have a company already, or are there companies that are getting these things to market? And I presume they’re what drugs? Or there’s some sort of treatments that are reasonable costs and that will eventually become a mass market type of phenomenon. James Clemett: 13:57 Your first point, anti-aging up until very recently has been mostly cosmetic. So it’s been basically tricking the outside world based on your skin and your muscle tone and things like that, that you were still Richard Miles: 14:09 A facelift ain’t making you any younger, right? James Clemett: 14:11 You are still exactly, but certainly in the last 10 years, and now five years, we’ve seen just an exponential increase in our knowledge regarding anti-aging therapies. Uh, I started studying in 2008 and 2009, looking at where I thought the most impact was going to be, and it was, and I still think in kind of a combination of two things, STEM cells and genetic therapy and my unfulfilled dream so far is to combine those two. So taking your autologist STEM cells, taking them out of your body, genetically improving them. So let’s say you’ve got an allele, like I have for increased risk of diabetes. Let’s change that and then expand and put those STEM cells back into you so that you now have better genetic code then you started off with. So that’s where I’m ultimately headed in my own research, but there’s lots of scientists now working in anti-aging. I’ve seen a tremendous change where I would talk to scientists and they would say, Oh, I’m totally on board with this, but I can’t tell anyone. And I was actually at a scientist presentation at Harvard, I think it was five or six years ago when he said I just got tenure, and now I can tell this entire audience that my sole focus in life is slowing down aging. And he said, I had to wait till I got tenure to do that, but that’s no longer the case. And now there’s anti-aging companies, you’ve got Google with Calico, HLI, which is something Craig Venter is associated with Human Longevity, Inc. Set up by Brian Johnson , Ajax with Mike West, Unity Biotech, lots of companies that are all looking at anti-aging therapeutics that will directly intervene in some aspect of aging in order to reverse damage that’s already been done or prevented from happening. And I’m very much involved in this, currently, doing human clinical trials in areas where it involves nutraceuticals or things that don’t necessarily have commercial value. So better humans. The organization that I founded and operate through is a nonprofit and we’re entirely subsidized by a small number of donors. We have a pretty good budget. It’s worked up over the years. So I started off with a very small lab in Los Angeles. I moved to Gainesville and I’ve been building a much larger lab and we’re hiring local PhDs and bringing in PhDs with various specialties from outside the U.S. And I’m particularly focused on taking anti-aging therapies that are not going to be commercialized because either they’re based on information that can’t be patented or they are involving already generic drugs and or nutraceuticals. So for example, the Mayo clinic researcher Jim’s Kirkland came up with a combination of drugs, one a chemotherapy adjunct called it’s hot nib and another, a nutraceutical called Quercitin, which working together do a great job of killing off these senescent zombie cells. So these are cells that are stopped in their life cycle process. So instead of replicating, they go into this senescent or acquiescent cycle where they no longer replicate and they become dysfunctional and they actually produce pro-inflammatory cytokines. So those are proteins that basically tell cells and their near environment, I have some sort of problem you should send over immune cells and either get rid of me or send other anti-inflammatories. And if I’m being challenged by a virus or a bacteria, kill them off, but these are cells that probably haven’t been attacked by a virus or a bacteria, but for other reasons, usually genetic damage just haven’t been able to complete their normal cell cycle. And they get stuck in this for a really long period of time. And as they build up and it’s believed that elderly people might have as much as 10 or 12% of their entire bodily cells are senescent. And these are producing these pro-inflammatory cytokines. You end up with individuals with very high levels of what’s called chronic systemic inflammation. And their body is constantly in a fight or flight situation where they’re trying to deal with an invader that doesn’t exist. And so their organs receive all these pro-inflammatory proteins and basically stopped functioning as well. So there’s drugs that kill off these cells, right? And your body restores new healthy cells in their place. So it’s at least theoretically a really great therapy. The Mayo clinic was the first to highlight this and to say that they believed that it would work for certain pathologies like, osteoarthritis and pulmonary fibrosis. I had talked to the researcher at a conference to find out when they were gonna launch a clinical trial and he wasn’t sure. So I decided to get an IRB. That’s a institutional Review Board. They basically look at clinical trials and determine whether or not this is ethical in terms of the risk versus the potential benefit to medicine. And I got approval for a protocol to treat people with, inaudible and inaudible is a generic drug, persantine is an over the counter and nutraceutical you can buy, and we did a year long study giving 30 patients who had osteoarthritis and two who had pulmonary fibrosis in addition to osteoarthritis, these compounds only three times and saw absolutely amazing results. Richard Miles: 19:25 So we’re talking about, in one case, a generic drug that’s already available and an over the counter, what was the second component? James Clemett: 19:30 Nutraceutical. Richard Miles: 19:30 Nutraceutical. Which is basically a supplement from either the plant or animal. James Clemett: 19:36 Correct . It’s a flavonoid, which comes from plants. Richard Miles: 19:38 Okay. So that sounds very promising. I’ve already decided we’re going to schedule our followup podcast 55 years from now when I will just have made it as a supercentenarians, and we’ll see how this goes. James, in the time remaining, I’d like to ask you a little bit about yourself from listening to you talk, it sounds like you’ve been a scientist your entire career, but that’s in fact not true. You did hint already that you’re international tax lawyer, and then before that you actually started out in politics, right. Or a version of politics, let’s go back before pre-professional you were from Missouri or were you raised on a farm or where were you raised? James Clemett: 20:11 I was raised on a farm, my parents themselves were not farmers, but they built a house on my grandparents farm and my dad was an electrician, my mom was a nurse. I have one sister a year older than I am. I was born in 55, and so, I recall seeing John at Kennedy’s, who we choose to go to the moon speech, for me, the entire Gemini, Mercury, Apollo missions were just meant for a kid. Richard Miles: 20:36 Right. James Clemett: 20:36 I was just absolutely infatuated with rocketry and space and astronomy and all this stuff. In high school, I was torn between opposition to the Vietnam war politically, and I would say most of my high school teachers who were luckily fairly young and liberal, versus my interest in science, and so I ended up going to college to study both of those. The science in the field of psychology through neurophysiology, and I was really lucky and I got an internship with a neurophysiologist at a nearby medical school and got published in science as a coauthor on a paper when I was a junior in college, which is a really big deal and I was very fortunate for that. But my other major was political science, and I helped politicians, mostly Democrats in Missouri get office. I ended up immediately after college working for the president pro-term of the Missouri Senate, helping him prepare for a gubernatorial election, and in that process decided I would go to law school. Again, really fortunate to get accepted to University of California Hastings Law School. I went there and pretty much right away was dissuaded by people who had sort of gone the route I’d looked at of international government as a career choice. Those who had done that basically talked me out of it. So I ended up becoming an international business and tax lawyer getting a job in Hawaii and helping mostly Asians from Japan and Hong Kong, which was still British at that time, invest in the United States and then went to NYU, got an advanced law degree in international tax planning, ended up working in New York City for a few more years, and then just decided to become a business person, and I sort of took my love of molecular biology and became a brew master opened up a brew pub at a college campus. Richard Miles: 22:24 Bullet proof logics. James Clemett: 22:26 Uh , yeah, I went from one bar to another and then just followed many entrepreneurial interests. But when I was turning 50, my parents were turning seventies. My dad had had open heart surgery and I was really starting to comprehend what aging was going to do to them, and decided that rather than being a dilettante and just standing by the sidelines and reading other people’s books and taking their advice, I would get into the field myself . Richard Miles: 22:52 That’s amazing career arc. I got to say, James, I just want to know who’s going to play you in the movie. Right? You trained as a scientist, you went into politics, you became a lawyer, and then back into science, and in nature where people are starting to think about retiring, you’re plunging back into a pretty challenging field. I mean, this is not just some hobby, right? James Clemett: 23:09 That’s right. In the past 10 years, I’ve read over 18,000 scientific papers. And , um , I feel like I’ve made up for the fact that I didn’t specialize in college, in biology, that I didn’t become a doctor or a PhD. And I spend most of my time going back and forth between reading new papers , talking to other scientists and thinking about my own experiments and where we’ll go from there. So the , the purpose of the lab is to basically back up some of the clinical trial work that we’re doing with being able to use a mass spectrometer, to analyze proteins in people’s blood, to do gene expression and DNA sequencing in our lab as well. So I’m really pleased that I have this ability. I absolutely love what I’m doing, I wake up every day, really excited to do one more thing, to try and slow down aging, and I kind of use my now nearly 90 year old parents as my inspiration and sort of guidance that we need this because I see so many people in their seventies and eighties that are suffering. And I recall meeting these hundred and nine, hundred and ten, year old people, they were doing just great. Richard Miles: 24:13 Well I would think that’s inspiration itself right? For you to say, hey mom, dad, you got to live another 20 years for even making it to my study. Right? James Clemett: 24:19 Right. Absolutely. And I think there’s something referred to by Aubrey DeGrey as longevity, escape velocity, and it basically means that as science provides us with better and better understanding, we will develop therapies that will just give you like one more year’s worth or two more years worth of healthy lifespan, and I think in the very near future, we’re going to get to the point where this happens more quickly than one year, Richard Miles: 24:44 Right. James Clemett: 24:44 So that we actually gain life span as time goes by, instead of it decreases as we age. Richard Miles: 24:51 James, one final question, if you could go back and talk to your 21 or 22 year old self coming out of college, and you’ve got these two distinctly different interests, what do you wish you knew then that you know now, anything? James Clemett: 25:03 So I’m a big sci-fi fan, and this idea of going back and telling yourself something never seems to work out in those stories. I think I would have preferred a lifetime in science rather than other areas. I’m basically a humanist at heart. So I deeply care about human beings and their ability to act. At the time, I thought politics was my way to help society and humans, but I think I’m more personally predisposed to figuring things out and that science is a perfect fit for me. Richard Miles: 25:35 James has been fascinating interview and I’ve already got the studio booked for a 2074 for our followup interview to talk about. James Clemett: 25:43 I hope we’re both here too to do that. Richard Miles: 25:44 Exactly, but thank you very much for joining me today on Radio Cade. James Clemett: 25:48 Thanks very much. Richard Miles: 25:48 I am Richard Miles. Outro: 25:49 Radio Cade, would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Jist of the Cade Museum for coordinating inventor interviews . Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcast and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song, featuring violinist, Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Big public infrastructure projects used to be synonymous with corruption, including bid rigging. Super-smart professors Jim McClave and Tom Rothrock figured out a way to detect bidding irregularities and catch cheaters. As a kid, Jim loved solving puzzles and did well at school, but suffered from bad “comportment” according to his teachers. Tom, a farm boy from Missouri, went to a one-room schoolhouse in a town of 100. “Not a lot of education took place” so he struggled in school, but “math came easy” to him. In 1977, Jim and Tom formed a business called InfoTech and have been collaborating ever since. *This episode was originally released on February 13, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade , who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:38 It’s all rigged. Or is it? Specifically, how does one go about detecting bid rigging? Here to help us understand, are Jim McClave and Tom Rothrock, the inventors and developers of computerized tools to see who is cheating and who is not. Welcome to the show, Jim and Tom. Jim McClave: 0:54 Thank you. Tom Rothrock: 0:55 Thank you. Richard Miles: 0:55 So let’s start out, Jim, I’m going to ask you what , uh, what exactly is the technology , uh, that you have developed and are using, explain it to me who really doesn’t know that much. I took one college statistics class, so I kind of know , uh , but not really. So to assume that our listeners don’t have a deep background in statistics. Jim McClave: 1:16 Fair enough. Um, our invention consists of , uh, software computerized techniques, statistical techniques that looks for patterns or trends to suggest that companies may not be playing fairly, that they may be rigging bids when they submit prices to government agencies to do work for them. So it’s, it’s basically software that makes the difference, shows a difference between competition and lack of competition. Richard Miles: 1:46 So typically, if a government agency or public entity puts out a project to bid, they’re going to get all these bid documents. And so the , the concept here is that all those bid documents get fed into a program. And then the program looks for anomalies or, you know, is there, is there a parameter range for each one of those numbers? And that’s how it essentially works. Is it more sophisticated? Jim McClave: 2:10 It’s a little more sophisticated in that . If you’re going to look for trends, you really need historical data. -Okay. So rather than just looking at today’s bids, we’re looking at maybe five or even 10 years worth of bids. And again , um , I try as hard as they might, if companies are cheating, it doesn’t look like competition. So there are patterns that show up, sometimes they’re trying to hide it, but -I see, we figured out ways that that look , uh, around the corners and into the nooks and crannies and find , uh , these patterns that suggest bid rigging. Richard Miles: 2:43 Um , so I saw a great phrase, I think one of your company documents about administering statistical justice. Uh , who came up with that? That’s a great phrase. Jim McClave: 2:52 Uh , it was probably one of our PR people, Tom and I tend not to brag about what we do. We just do it. Richard Miles: 3:00 Give that guy a raise, cause I mean, I like it, statistical justice. Jim McClave: 3:02 I like it too . Richard Miles: 3:03 Um , and so Jim, you started the company in 1977, Tom, you joined a few years later, but , um, uh , Jim, what gave you the idea? Uh, you were , you were a research, you’re professor , um, and so that’s always an interesting transition. I find from academia into the business world. Did, y’all wake up one day in 1977 and I’m sick and tired of being a professor. I’m going to, I’m going to start a business or how did it work? Jim McClave: 3:28 Uh , actually I loved teaching , um, and , uh, I got the chance from our department chairman in statistics to do some consulting. And I really liked that because it was basically teaching and the university encouraged us to do it, but we had to keep records. And that’s the sole reason I founded , uh , Infotech. As far as getting into our invention in the business, when today you should ask Tom because it started with him. Richard Miles: 3:52 So Tom , uh , who found who? Did, did Jim come looking for you or did you hear what he was doing and decide to get involved? Tom Rothrock: 3:58 After I finished my PhD I had several consulting opportunities with the Florida Attorney General’s Office. They were interested in looking at public procurement in the state of Florida to determine if they were getting good prices on things that they were procuring. And they collected a lot of data and wanted me to analyze that data for them, but they also wanted to use the University of Florida’s computer system since it was freely available to them. And one of the people working in the anti-trust unit, it had Jim for a class and raved about how good he was and asked me if I would be willing to partner with him on this project. And so I came down here on one rainy February night, and he met me at the airport and that started our relationship that has lasted now 41 years. Richard Miles: 4:44 So did you have that core insight from the beginning that , um, or , or was it suggested to you by the, uh , what office was it in the Florida state government ? Tom Rothrock: 4:55 It was the anti-trust general of the Attorney General’s Office. Richard Miles: 4:59 So did they already suspect that bid rigging was going on? I mean, it’s not exactly a new thing, right? Been around for centuries, but did they already think that there was a path of statistical analysis path to find it? Or are you the ones that sort of said we… Tom Rothrock: 5:13 They weren’t sure. They weren’t sure, okay. The connection there is, you know, I did my PhD dissertation in Missouri, at the University of Missouri on statistical methods to detect bid rigging. That was the topic of my thesis and one of the, my student friends there took a job at the Attorney General’s Office, and he sort of sold them on the idea that they ought to be looking because it is fairly prevalent. And so they decided to bring me in as a consultant to help them identify areas where there might be problems in bid rigging on what they were procuring. Richard Miles: 5:51 Wow. That’s , uh , usually it’s, you know , professors helping students and now in this case, a student helped a professor, right? Sort of by -yes recommending…um , uh, okay, we’re going to talk about Infotech as a company a little bit later on. Um, but first I’d sorta like to hear about your background. It’s always fascinating to me, sort of what, what are the early influences in careers and , and eventually , um, you know, your inventions. So, Jim, let’s start with you. Are you, are you from Florida? Are you from the South? Uh, where’d your parents , uh, end up in and what were some of your early influences? Jim McClave: 6:24 I , uh , no, I’m not from the South. I grew up in Eastern Ohio , uh, right across the river from Pittsburgh, a steel town. Um, and , uh , mom and dad , uh , grew up there as well. They were high school sweethearts. Um, so , uh , my early days were , uh, in a pretty tough area. I had a love from the beginning for science and math. My dad was an entrepreneur, so I think, I loved solving puzzles. That was my big deal as a kid. Uh, I remember they would buy me these books of puzzles and, and so I think that sort of , sort of launched me on the, on the path that I ended up on. Richard Miles: 7:04 And were you a good student, Jim? I mean..? Jim McClave: 7:06 I was, back then the report cards had two sides to it. One had the grades and the other had comportment and, and on the grade side, I was always great on the compartment side there were always some U’s for unsatisfactory. I was a little talkative, I think, and too much energy. Richard Miles: 7:23 And so did your parents just focus on the grade side or did they immediately flip it over to the comportment side? Jim McClave: 7:29 They, they, they encouraged changing those U’s to S’s, but I think they were happy with the grades. Richard Miles: 7:34 And Tom, how about you? Where, where did you grow up and what were you like as a kid? Tom Rothrock: 7:38 I grew up on a farm about 50 miles West of St. Louis on a 300 acre farm run by my uncles. And I lived right next to the farm with my grandparents and my mom who was divorced , uh, you know , working and, she would drive into St. Louis every day, so I’d be there with my grandparents and my uncles. And they sort of taught me a lot about working on a farm. I did a lot of chores and activities like that, and sort of the one hallmark there is that town had a population about 100 and they had one school with one teacher for eight grades. So I went to a one room school house and as a result, I wasn’t a very good student , uh , because not much education really took place in that environment. So I struggled a bit when my mom remarried, we moved to St. Louis and I struggled a bit started getting acclimated to , uh, you know, real education and the school environment. Richard Miles: 8:34 So , um, both of you went into a field that is , uh, you have to understand numbers, not just understand that it’s sort of really , uh , like the whole process. Do you remember at a point anywhere as , uh , in middle school, high school college, in which you just, there’s something about numbers that fascinated you? And the reason I ask is , uh , we have a daughter who’s an actuary and she just, she likes doing things like taxes or balancing a checkbook or things like that. It just sort of calms her down. I’m sort of the same way, by the way. Do you remember that sort of just feeling comfortable around numbers? So at any point, growing up? Jim McClave: 9:11 What I remember most is that math came easy and I loved it. I loved the puzzle-solving part of , of math problems. And , um, so I think, you know, it’s just always part of my DNA, right, for right from the beginning , uh, from the time that teachers was, hold up those cards with the two plus ones on it and , uh , uh, you know, to advanced calculus , uh , it just was something that was always , uh , uh, uh, I was fascinating to me. Tom Rothrock: 9:38 As I mentioned, I sort of struggled with my , uh , education, but like Jim math came easy to me. And so I wound up in college , uh , choosing math as my major, because it was probably the easiest subject for me to do. I had enjoyed the analytical reasoning and problem-solving that goes along with the mathematics. Richard Miles: 9:56 So now we’re going to fast forward to you’re, you’re now involved with , uh , one of the most successful companies in , in the Gainesville, certainly, and certainly in the region. And you started out very small, tiny company, really just sort of you, Jim and then I presume a handful of employees. And now you’re a fairly large employer. Um, tell us a little bit, what has that transition been like for you as a manager and a leader? What are you essentially the same guy in terms of those skillsets ? Or have you developed them in a, in a deliberate fashion, knowing that you’re, you know , responsible for a lot more people? Jim McClave: 10:34 I don’t know . I would call it deliberate fashion. It certainly has evolved because it’s had to , uh , you’re right. We started actually, when I found it Infotech, it was my wife and I, so it was strictly a family business. She did the books and I did the consulting , uh , and it stayed when Tom joined us, we were still very small and both of us for whatever reason, had the concept of a family culture , uh , with our company. And we’ve really tried to foster that , uh , throughout we’re all in this together, we treat each other, right. We treat our customers as part of our extended family. And so I think the transition that part of the transition that’s been most challenging is maintaining that culture. Uh , as you grow from five to ten to a hundred now to 250 employees. Uh, but we have fought hard to do that. Um, the people that come to us that might be very bright, but don’t fit in that culture don’t we find don’t last long. So now when we’re doing interviewing, we make sure that there’s a culture fit. So I think that’s been the biggest challenge. Richard Miles: 11:39 And I imagine you, you probably have a low turnover. It sounds like a lot of employees stay for quite a long time. Jim McClave: 11:44 We’ve we recently had, I guess it’s been a year or two now, a lunch where , uh, anybody that had 30 years in , uh , and it filled the room. It was just amazing, so, yes, we’ve got, we’ve got some now they’re above 35 and we’re only 40 years old. So a very low transition, turnover rate. Richard Miles: 12:02 Yeah. That’s, that’s amazing. Um, Tom, every company has highs and lows , uh, sort of big successes where you hit it out of the park and others, not so much. Uh , would you willing to share with our listeners? I know that you’ve had some big successes in terms of detecting very large amounts of cheating and bids for the state of Florida and maybe others. So tell us a little bit about those, but also , uh , moments where you thought maybe , uh, you know, joining Jim and his endeavor was a bad idea. Tom Rothrock: 12:35 Well, I wouldn’t say that I ever thought that , uh , but in the early years it was a struggle as I think most companies and startups certainly experienced a challenge the first few years, as they’re getting started in establishing a presence in the marketplace, getting steady customers that they can depend on. And, you know, we were the same way. You’re right. We had a couple of big successes fairly early on. Uh, I was also professor at UF , uh, visiting from Wisconsin , uh, working with Jim. And we got hired by the Florida Attorney General’s Office to investigate the highway construction industry, because there was information that in other states there were problems with bid rigging activity going on. There, there was no evidence of it, but they knew that we had the techniques, they could analyze the bidding data and point them in the right direction. And we did that very successfully and they recovered over $30 million in a few years based on our analysis. And what that did is it really launched us because at that point, other states were having similar problems. And so we wound up having to commit a lot of resources to working in that area. So that was a big success and really got the foundation and it was enough that I left the university to do this full time and kept wanting to think about going back, but Infotech kept growing and yeah, and now I look back 40 years later and here I am, but a , a failure happened probably about three years later , uh, because we were successful in developing this software and these programs. So we thought we could develop some other programs that would compliment this and offer them in the commercial marketplace. So we staffed up with a team of programmers and a team of marketers, and that costs us money and it really drained our resources. And it turned out that even though we had excellent products, there just wasn’t a market there for those products. Which was a very important lesson for us is that no matter how good your product is, if you don’t have a market, you’re not going to be successful. And that almost caused us to go under. Richard Miles: 14:37 That is very interesting. A recent guest on our show, Randy Scott, who you may know , um, said , uh, one thing that he finds talking to other entrepreneurs, particularly researchers, is the first thing you have to do is fall out of love with science and figure out what the market is. Because I think to your point, you know, it sounds like you had a great product, but the market wasn’t there. And so it doesn’t matter how great the product is -exactly the right, to buy it. Yeah. That brings up an interesting question. You know, so you, you develop the original sort of proprietary software back in the late seventies. Obviously, the world has changed a lot in terms of , uh, information, technology and software , um, has competition increased? Are there other companies out there or software’s sort of come close to what you’re doing? Or do you still have something that is , is hard for others to replicate? Jim McClave: 15:32 We certainly have, the product has, has evolved over the years of techniques have evolved. Uh , as I was saying early on like , uh, those that are out there trying to cheat , uh , sort of, know, now all there are certain trends that we better not have. So , uh, it, it’s , it’s an evolutionary. Um, I, to be honest, I don’t think there are others that are, that are doing quite what we’re doing. I mean, there are people that are consultants in this, in the, in the business, but in terms of having the software to the point where we’ve got it, and as Tom will tell you, it’s , it’s grown well beyond just the bid rigging software, it’s construction management software. So we’ve certainly learned that you’ve got to evolve, you’ve got to keep, you got to be creative. You got to keep going. You can’t stand in one place because then you will be passed. Richard Miles: 16:20 Right. Um, so I assume that your business is much broader than just Florida now, right? I mean, who are your clients? Are all over the country, all over the world or? Tom Rothrock: 16:29 All over the country. -Okay. Yeah. We, one of the things we did back in the mid-eighties when we were having the challenges is we were approached by AASHTO, which is the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials. And they’re an umbrella agency for all state departments of transportation. And they were interested in our software because they wanted to promote better procurement across the country. And so we agreed at that time to provide our software to them and they licensed the software out to the states. So right now we’re serving about approximately 40 state departments of transportation with this bid rigging software. And , and it’s unique, uh , there are other companies back in the eighties that tried to develop what we did, but they just weren’t successful in getting it right. And so we don’t really have any competition that I’m aware of for that type of software. But the interesting thing is Jim said earlier, it requires a lot of data to analyze where does that data come from other systems within the agency ? So what we started doing in the mid-eighties was helping agencies build those other systems to feed – Richard Miles: 17:34 To capture all that data, Tom Rothrock: 17:34 To capture the data. And that’s, so we now have a full suite of construction management software all the way from the planning stages of a project, through the completion of construction. It lives within our software. And we also capture all of the bidding data, all the vendor information, the suppliers, the subcontractors, the materials, everything that goes into a job winds up in the database for us to be able to analyze. Richard Miles: 17:59 So you have a very rich, sort of broad, and deep database where. Tom Rothrock: 18:03 We certainly do. Richard Miles: 18:04 Are there, are you scouting other opportunities for potential applications of this database? Tom Rothrock: 18:10 Well, one of the things, Richard Miles: 18:11 You tell me, you’d have to kill me. Right? Cause I sell it to your competitors right? Jim McClave: 18:15 It actually, one of the surprises, as far as our evolution to me has concerned, we , we early on did highways, as Tom said, and Florida and, you know, I knew after that, that there was a lot of cheating that was going on in that industry. But I wondered, you know, is it widespread? What has in the consulting side of our business, which is what I basically run, we’ve found just about every industry that we’ve looked at. Not that there’s all cheaters, but there are pockets of cheating. So I think what the way we’ve evolved is we’re well beyond just applying it to two highways. Richard Miles: 18:53 Ah , all right . We’ve , we’ve come to the part of this show where it’s your chance to be sort of philosopher Kings here. Uh , you know, you’ve got, you’ve got more than 40 years of experience , um, coming out of academia, building starting a small business and building it to a very successful business. Jim, let’s start with you. What, what advice would you give to any entrepreneur who’s starting out, but also specifically to academics who have a great idea, and they say, I want to make a go of this in the market. Uh, you know, are there are , let’s say, are there three things that they absolutely should do? And, and are there three things or any number of things they should definitely not do? Jim McClave: 19:31 Well, as far as what they should do, is it that there will be a certain level of anxiety overcome that fear, go for it. Uh, I could go on with trite expressions , um, but, but, you know, chase your dream. Assume that your idea is really a good one, it may not be. Uh , and , and that’s sort of the other side of this expect the fact that there will be, you can call them failures or dead ends , uh , along the way, but chase your dream to go . If you love just being teaching and doing research, that’s fine. But if you’ve got an idea , uh, let’s expand on it. Richard Miles: 20:05 Uh , so Tom , when you joined , uh, you were already well into your academic career , um, and you said you were approaching 40, right? When you joined the company. So this is, you’re 38, so , uh, if you had failed, you couldn’t have just gone and slept on your mom’s couch, right? You had a family by then and kids, it’s a bit of a risk for you, which I think describes a lot of academics that sort of nearing the height of their careers. And then they decided to sort of give up their day jobs, so to speak. And what was that like for you? Uh, and then is that something you would advise if you saw yourself today in the form of a professor, would you tell him yep do it? Tom Rothrock: 20:44 That’s a good question. Uh, I know my wife certainly wasn’t thrilled when I told her that I was going to leave teaching, Richard Miles: 20:51 We’ll have them on the next podcast. Tom Rothrock: 20:55 To go start doing this. I think one of the keys is you can’t be risk-adverse. And I guess from my upbringing and the different life experiences I had, I was always willing to sort of take a chance on an idea and see it through. And I always had enough confidence in what I could do that if it didn’t work out, I felt that I would have opportunities to go back to teaching and I love teaching, but even when I started teaching back in 1970, I said, there’s going to come a point in time when I want to get out of the university academic environment and try something on my own. And you know, when I met Jim and the stars sort of aligned, and I said, this is the opportunity I want to try. And if it works great, if it doesn’t, that’s fine too. Richard Miles: 21:40 Are you often asked to speak about your experiences or do you have people sort of knocking on your door, asking for advice in terms of, do I start a company or not, or, or do you just not have time to do that? Jim McClave: 21:51 I certainly would be glad to talk to folks. And now we’re 250 and we’ve got this PR department that’s pushing us to do the kind of thing we’re doing today. So I have a feeling we’ll be doing more of it, and I like doing it because again, to the extent we can share experiences that would help someone else go along a similar path and take the, take the chances as Tom just said, I think we both like , uh, like, like doing this. Yeah. Tom Rothrock: 22:18 I know I’ve had some interaction with the innovation hub and back when David Day and Jane Muir were there, they invited me to come down and meet with some of the startup companies and talk to some of the young entrepreneurs and share some of the experiences, the good and the bad that we had and how we got started and how we stabilized as a company. So I guess, yes, it is exciting to talk to people who have these ideas and want to try something and try to help them along that path to become successful. Richard Miles: 22:44 And I know Infotech as a company has been very supportive of the innovation economy in , in Florida and particularly in Gainesville, but I’ll also broadly in the state, you know, sort of supporting that , uh, those young entrepreneurs and young inventors and so on. And it’s been a tremendous support, but I want to thank both of you for coming on the show today, Jim and Tom , um, wish you the best of luck as , uh , watching Infotech’s continued success and , um, and hoping you will dispense that, that wisdom and experience. Uh, cause I know there are a lot of folks in town here who really benefit. Jim McClave: 23:16 Thanks very much. Tom Rothrock: 23:17 Thank you, we really enjoyed it. Richard Miles: 23:18 I’m Richard Miles, thank you for joining us for another episode of Radio Cade , please come back next week for another interview with an inventor or entrepreneurial. Outro: 23:28 Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support, Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and vendor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing, and production of the podcasts and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song featuring violinist , Jacob Lawson, and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

“Every imagination is distinct,” says Dan Hunter. “It is a conglomeration of what you’ve experienced, what you want to achieve, and what you remember.” Can imagination be measured, and what does it have to do with creativity and invention? How do teachers develop imagination in their students, and how is it elicited in the workplace? Host Richard Miles talks to Dan Hunter, the inventor of the Hunter Imagination Questionnaire, known as H-IQ, the first assessment of individual imagination and ideation. Dan is also an accomplished playwright, author, songwriter, teacher, and comedian. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:00Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:00Imagination. What does it really mean? Can it be measured? And what does it have to do with creativity and invention? I’m your host, Richard Miles, and my guest today via the miracle of Zoom is Dan Hunter, the inventor of the Hunter Imagination Questionnaire known as H-IQ, the first assessment of individual imagination and ideation. He’s also accomplished playwright, songwriter, and teacher. Welcome to the show, Dan. Dan Hunter: 0:00Thank you, Richard Richard Miles: 1:04So, Dan. This show is produced in Florida. I live in DC, You live in Massachusetts and we’re conducting the interview via a technology created in San Jose, California. Imagine that. Dan Hunter: 1:04Yes, exactly. Richard Miles: 1:17So I neglected to mention in introducing you that you are probably the world’s foremost authority on what makes Iowa funny. Dan Hunter: 1:25I’ll claim that honor. Yeah, I am a native of Iowa and lived there until about 20 years ago. Richard Miles: 1:32And you’ve written a couple of books on it as well. Sort of specifically humor and Iowa, right? Dan Hunter: 1:36Yeah, Three books. “Let’s Keep Des Moines a Private Joke,” “The Search for Iowa” and “We Don’t Grow Potatoes,” and, the last one is, “Iowa. It’s a State of Mind.” Richard Miles: 1:47Is this taken well by native Iowans that they like the ribbing? Or do you get some push back? Dan Hunter: 1:52No. I made my living for about 17 years, performing throughout the Midwest and primarily Iowa. I think Midwesterners, they appreciate humor about themselves, and they recognize that they have a calm humility about them, for the most part. Occasionally you get a crackpot, I mean one person once sent me back one of my books stapled 100 times. Richard Miles: 2:14Like I said, that’s an interesting side hustle. But I guess it wasn’t a side hustle a while. Dan Hunter: 2:20No, it was my main work at the time. Richard Miles: 2:22So, this is not a show dedicated to Iowa humor, as much as we, we could talk about that, but to showcase the stories of inventors and entrepreneurs, and at the root of most of those narratives are seeds of imagination and creativity. But the problem is imagination, sort of one of those amorphous words that a lot of people use and a lot of them use it differently, I thought. Let’s start by defining imagination itself, How would you give a fairly precise definition of imagination? And then we’ll go on after that to talk about the questionnaire you develop. Dan Hunter: 2:54I think it’s very important to distinguish between imagination, creativity, and innovation. Imagination is what happens inside a person’s mind and imagination is something that we all have. It’s part of being Homosapiens. It’s part of our evolution, and people use their imagination every day, often unaware that they are using their imagination. So the concise definition of imagination is, it is the ability to predict outcomes, visualized scenarios, and to engage in counterfactual thinking. So those three aspects are part of our daily life. I mean, you might be thinking, What am I gonna have for lunch? Should I go to downtown tomorrow? Where should we go on vacation? All of those involved predicting an outcome and visualizing this scenario, and it’s universal. Everybody does it now, you might ask yourself then, Well, what’s the difference between, say, me and Albert Einstein? Now, if you are trying to visualize where you left your car keys and you might visualize, Gee, do I see them in my mind on the kitchen counter? How do I see them by the back door? You’re using the same channels of visualization that Albert Einstein used because there’s no special channel for visualizing the universe. And the difference between most of us and Albert Einstein is that Albert Einstein practiced this his whole life, and he channeled his imagination to achieve his goals. He was able to visualize how light moved through the universe and how it might be bent by an orb or a solid body. He could actually visualize that in his mind, and that was the key to his success. So what about creativity? Creativity is defined as something that’s original, novel, of value, either aesthetic or utilitarian. And so it is actually a designation, and not of what goes on inside your mind, where you generate ideas, your imagination. It’s a designation that applies to your idea. Bringing your idea forward. Creativity is a designation given by others. It could be in your domain, it could be in your family. But the designation of creativity is not from you, can I use a metaphor? Richard Miles: 5:04Sure, of course, I love metaphors. Dan Hunter: 5:06This is a baseball metaphor, but then again, we are in America. Richard Miles: 5:10This is as close, as we’ll come baseball, probably in 2020. So go ahead. Dan Hunter: 5:14So imagination, creativity, and innovation. Imagination is when the batter is on deck in that little batter circle and warming up. Now, he or she could be thinking about anything, but we hope that she’s planning on a strategy, an idea to implement at the plate. She might be thinking ill bunt it down the third baseline, or I’ll try to hit it over the right field. Or maybe I’ll try to hit a home run. However, this is internal thinking imagination. She could be thinking about anything. She could be thinking about chicken pot pie, Cadillac Eldorado. It’s all internal at that point. Now, we hope that she is applying her imagination towards the goals of the game. Now, when she comes to bat, that is the chance to implement her idea. Now they’re too arbitrary white lines in baseball that extend into infinity, in theory. Those are the foul lines, and if you hit the ball outside of the foul line, no matter how powerful you hit it, it doesn’t count. Now it’s the same way with creativity. Your idea has to fall within the expectations of your domain within the expectations of society, be within the rules of the game. And so creativity, then, is when your idea works, and it’s recognized by people that it works and that it adds value within the game. Innovation is then when you have a tangible result the success like reaching first base air coming around the home plate. Now what I started to say is, the DaVinci is a very good example of this Leonardo DaVinci because we know from his notebooks that he had extraordinary ideas for somebody who lived in the late 15th early 16th century. Among them were human propelled helicopter, a set of flying wings. Now those ideas were only in his notebooks. They never were produced. The Duke of Milan could see no value in them, and so they were not useful. They weren’t deemed creative. They weren’t in the expectations of the Duke of Milan. Now skip to the second half of the 19th century, when a lot of his notebooks were found after being lost and during the end of the 19th century the question was not, can human beings fly? The question was when, because from about 1850 on, there was a great race to become the first self-propelled flying machine, and we know who finished first, which was the Wright Brothers. But so the time when they found these notebooks it was great excitement because the expectation was we will be able to fly and DaVinci’s ideas are considered creative. And in retrospect, in the last 20 years of the 21st century, museums have built replicas, particularly of the helicopter, and it doesn’t fly. But nonetheless, it’s what’s interesting about that. So all ideas begin in imagination, they can’t begin anywhere else. And therefore, if you channel your imagination, if you use your imagination, you will have ideas that maybe recognizes creative or they may not depending on the audience and the time of society. Richard Miles: 8:19You talked about, Einstein talked about DaVinci so clearly there are people who develop this skill better than others. but It’s not something that someone is totally lacking imagination. Just give an example from the other end of the spectrum. We have, ah, a brand new eight-month granddaughter, and what’s fascinating is to see her develop. And you can kind of see her understanding the world increase, including imagination. One example, where in the last month to six weeks she now understands that if somebody disappears from the room, they don’t disappear from the world. When she hears, noises or footsteps coming from outside the world, she looks expectantly so clearly she knows that somebody is gonna pop around the corner based on the steps. So that’s the prototype of beginning to imagine yourself right in different spatial areas or different time periods and so on. So you and others have developed a questionnaire that can really get at the fine tuning assessment of somebody’s. Is it their potential to imagine? Or is it just a snapshot of where they are on that spectrum of, say, being an eight-month-old baby who figures out that people exist outside of the room? And Einstein or DaVinci? Dan Hunter: 9:26First, let me address one of the differences between Einstein and DaVinci and most people. Everything that goes on in your brain is neural connections. Neural networks, where the synapses process an electrical charge inside the neuron converts it to a chemical at the synapse, and then it goes to the next one. What we know about the plasticity, the neural plasticity, the brain is that the brain strengthens how you use it. In other words, practice improves that network in your brain. There’s a classic study of 24 jugglers, and 12 of them had to learn how to juggle, and the other 12 had the great challenge of not learning how to juggle, what happened? Well, there’s actually an increase in the gray matter on the dorsal lateral side of those who learned how to juggle the brain structure itself changed by the learning. The non-jugglers had no change then. This is curious because, of course, the jugglers, the new jugglers, they did it for the month that they were required to do. And most of them stopped because they realized that being able to juggle was not going to increase their chance of passing on their DNA to anyone. So they stop juggling they came back six months later, and that growth in the brain in the gray matter had disappeared. The brain had rerouted that gray matter, those neurons for other tasks. So if you want imagination, you have to practice it, like Einstein did. Or like DaVinci, who walked the streets with his notebook constantly drawing constantly writing his ideas. Now HIQ, which I developed as a solo project. It does not compare your imagination to mine, and the reason for that is is that every imagination is distinct. Even identical twins who share the same genome will not have a similar imagination. It’s that imagination is that conglomeration of what you’ve experienced, what you want to achieve, what you remember. So it’s those three aspects and, you know, from literature and elsewhere that people remember events quite differently, so they have their own understanding of it that informs their own imagination. So the HIQ. The idea came to me when I was working to try to increase the importance of creative work in the schools, and my first thought was, well, we need to have some way of keeping score because Americans value what we can measure, particularly in the schools, and so those things that are immeasurable, such as creativity. They get overlooked or sidelined because they don’t fit into the equation. They don’t fit into the algorithm. So my thought was, if we could establish a measurement that would increase the importance of the creative work, I won’t go into my original idea, which was almost implemented in Oklahoma. But it was similar to something the CDC does. A CDC examines at-risk populations like postnatal, neonatal elderly, youth at risk. They actually measure behaviors to determine potential outcomes. And that’s what the original index was going to do. But as I thought about it, I realized couple of things one. The most important thing is how you use your imagination and getting students to channel their imagination towards their goals. And so the HIQ is based on four sessions, none longer than eight minutes. So it’s easiest schedule inside of a classroom, and you can do it shorter doesn’t have to go the full eight minutes and has very simple prompts. There’s no secret sauce just like that, no secret sauce between Einstein visualizing and you. It is the same skills, so that prompts ask, you know what are you doing with your imagination? What do you want to do? What do you hope to achieve? And then at the end of the first session, if you’re invited to write as many ideas as you can and it’s not an English test, you don’t need to be grammatically correct as long as you can remember your ideas from what you write at the end of the first session, the software seals your ideas up in a virtual envelope on stores it. Then you have an incubation period 3 to 7 days. Now, if you didn’t like your ideas in the first session, doesn’t matter because you’re gonna have three more sessions and the human brain being what it is. You will either consciously or subconsciously ask yourself, Why didn’t I have any ideas so it gets easier as you go along? Second session is visualization. The third session is on change and invention and discovering again every time your ideas air sealed and stored at the end of the fourth session, all your ideas come back to you. And you assess the idea is on a liquored scale, 1 to 10. That’s what gives you the score. It’s not a diagnostic test. It doesn’t say you’re creative and you’re not because we all have imagination. What it actually measures is how engaged you are with your ideas Now that is valuable to the individual. It’s also a former metacognition because you examine in that time period how you generate ideas where you get your ideas and you focus on the notion that, yeah, I can generate ideas. That’s my responsibility. For the schools they get a score in the aggregate, what that allows them to do. And here’s the measurement part that allows them to determine what changes occurring with these students in terms of their imagination. So you have on opening sessions, say, at the beginning of the year, and that’s a benchmark. You can take it again at the end of the semester or at the end of year. One school wants to start with the incoming freshman, and so it’s a very distinctive questionnaire and is very different from existing creativity tests. I’m sure you’ve seen some of those the nine-dot test and others, but the thing that puzzles me about the other creativity tests is that they are designed by an expert, administered on one day, and then evaluated by that same expert. So aren’t we really measuring whether or not you fit the experts’ idea of creativity? There’s no chance for you to find your own imagination, which is what HIQ does for you. Richard Miles: 15:24So, Dan, I think I understand how the test works. But let me just see if I do understand. If I were to sit and take the test and in session one, what exactly is the questions? Like what I wanted to believe Is that kind of Dan Hunter: 15:35what do you hope to do, create, or achieve in the next few months? Richard Miles: 15:38So let’s say I said, okay, I’ve got a great idea on a manned mission to Mars, right? Okay, and then in session two, I could say either that was a stupid idea. That’s not going anywhere, or I come back and say, Well, I’ve done some thinking about it, and we need to establish a base on the moon first, and then we need to build stuff on the moon. And would that be evidence that I was engaging with my idea as opposed to just tossing it out? Or where would I fall on the spectrum then of imagination? Dan Hunter: 16:06I would say that you are engaged with your imagination when you get to that point, when you’re starting to ask yourself what else? If you just say, go to Mars and those are the sorts of ideas that floats through your mind quite frequently. But it’s far better that, as you point out, that when you become engaged with the idea and you start exploring the ramifications, what are the nuances? What are the different angles? And you feel yourself gaining interest in momentum. That’s when you’re engaged with your imagination. Now let me share with you what high school students at Conquer Academy wrote when they first did the HIQ, one student wrote that she wanted to write an in-depth essay on the treatment of adolescence and state mental hospitals. She also wanted to develop an algorithm to imitate Stuxnet and to see if it will could be damaged by a computer virus. Now those were pretty ambitious. Then the next questions answer Right after that, I want to get pretty your glasses. I need new blue jeans. Now, the point of that is that that’s how imagination works. It’s not something you reserve for the glory ideas. It’s something that occurs every day, and the glory ideas come along, too. Not that often, but something you use every day Richard Miles: 17:15You used earlier the great analogy of hitting between the foul lines. You could power the ball over the left-field bleachers, but if it’s left of the foul line, people may be impressed. But it doesn’t go. How does imagination translate into the type of curriculum that we teach, if at all, or testing or improving imagination and then in the workplace? Because you can imagine no pun intended, you could be in that workplace, have all these great ideas. But if your employer says I want X, Y and Z from you 9 to 5 and you go hey no, no, I got a great idea for M. They don’t want to listen, that’s not what they’re paying you for. You have somebody like that would give up or they don’t do it. Dan Hunter: 17:52In that case, M, would be a foul ball. Richard Miles: 17:55Right, exactly, yeah. So let’s start with schools. Are there types of schools that do this better in terms of encouraging that imagination to develop into creativity to develop in the action or are they all getting a failing grade? Dan Hunter: 18:07I don’t think they get a failing grade. Really. It comes down to the individual teacher when I give workshops to teachers and I asked them or I suggest ways that they can increase student imagination. One of the touchstones I come back to is if you give an assignment to your students and you know ahead of time what it’s gonna look like when it comes back, then you’re not increasing their imagination. So I’ll tell you a story. That’s a good example of how you could teach for creativity. When I was in fifth grade, I had a science teacher, Miss Dixie Douglas, and she wanted to teach us the anatomy of the human body, and she could have had us memorized the bones. But instead, she said, make a skeleton. How do you do that? We can’t make a skeleton, she said. You can use anything you want on. She gave us a break, she said. The skull, which has 40 some bones in it. We could just have one piece for the whole skull and it’s extra bones, so people went out and I got a coat hanger and straight out, I put empty spools of thread for the vertebrae, little pieces of felt for the pad in between. I used the inside rollers of paper towels for the arms, the only in the femur, and everybody had a different approach. Now my head was the hardest one to do, and so I kind of tried to shape it out of Styrofoam. It didn’t look very good, but she didn’t say how to do it. She just said, come back with it. Well, at the end, one friend of mine came in and hit the skull ahead. That he had on his skeleton was a head of lettuce, and again, who could have predicted that? And again, it’s a head, so it works. So my reaction is that people who are teaching for creativity are allowing students to be responsible for their ideas and moving the responsibility for imagination off the teacher and onto the student. Another good example of that was a high school teacher in Oklahoma who got tired of high school students complaining about high school. Well, she said, that’s it, I’ve had it, plan your own high school. You got six weeks, everything from the ground up, and stopped, so they had to figure everything out. And so what you see in that process is taking in questions, recognizing where you need information, exchange, and collaboration with each other and it’s very much like a business should work. I’m going back to the business part about the guy who came up with M when they wanted X, Y and Z. The biggest short come in any group of humans is the failure to listen. And so, that person, maybe his idea may be completely whack-a-doo, but somebody at least has to listen to him. Richard Miles: 20:41Then let’s talk about some of the variables in the aggregate that you think may influence the stock of imagination, creativity, and a given country or culture. Are there things that you see happening on a large scale that seem to point towards well, that is good in enhancing or missing more creative, imaginative responses, Whereas that is not, one example that I’m sure you’ve seen a lot as well is when my wife when I first started the Cade Museum, we talked to a lot of inventors and entrepreneurs, and we go to their offices and we asked him for over their origin story of the invention. And we noticed on their bookshelf the books that they had were all over the map. They weren’t just on their particular discipline. They had books on history and the arts and cooking and sports and everything. The other thing that we did notice and it wasn’t s significant relation, but an awful lot of particularly the physicians and engineers and we talked to were amateur musicians. And so it seemed to us on our very small sample side of several dozen, maybe up to 100 of these folks, that this ability to see outside of your particular training seemed to have an effect because again, we’ve got a lot of great researchers. But not very many of them actually become inventors. There was an additional variable of play in spurring them on to the next level of actually creating a new technology or product or idea whatever. And our thesis was that it was training in the arts of the ability to see outside of their own training, that supercharged the creativity you had. Do you see anything like that? In your experience, in your research playing out citywide or statewide, globally, in terms of the variables that go into this? Dan Hunter: 22:16That’s difficult, I don’t see anything that happens consistently in schools or government or business. I think that there’s a lot of lip service to wanting this so called innovative workforce. But I don’t see a concentrated effort to get there, which I believe would involve changing fundamental attitudes in the schools. I think that is essential mean that has to happen because we are teaching students preparing them for jobs that don’t yet exist using technologies that haven’t been invented. So what should we teach them? We should teach them the ability to generate their own ideas, and as you point out, combine disparate items to see something freshly, to see something new. I think that when you talk about the inventors and engineers and doctors you talked about with the variety of books on their shelves playing music, I think it comes back to the word curiosity. That if you have a natural and innate curiosity, you’re gonna try things and find things that other people don’t, and you have to be able to look. In one of my creative workshops. I used to talk about how much the subconscious controls our moment to moment daily lives. And to exemplify that, I would ask everybody in the room to be quiet and still, this would usually be in a classroom or some kind of business room, and say, do you hear any sounds that you hadn’t heard before? Well, there’s usually a very strong buzz from the fluorescent tubes, and they all hear that now on. My point is that’s been there since you first walked in. And I once did that with a group of composers, and they had all already heard it because that’s their bent in life is listening to sounds. But yes, I think it’s very important to have a broad interest and the aspect of music to get back to that something very interesting about music. But I don’t think we fully understand why. But when you play music and sometimes when you listen to music, it engages almost all of your brain when you do that and they’re not many functions that do that, and we don’t really know why it does that. But it has a powerful effect on music is a great mystery. Another point I might make about the connection between musicians and ideas. When you play music, you have to focus and it takes you out of the current world, and your entire conscious mind is focused on playing the music. The next notes on ideas often come when we shift our focus away from the problem itself. And I think that’s something that music does. Or people say they get their ideas in the shower. I have a friend in New Mexico who gets his ideas mowing the lawn. It’s almost as if you shut down the conscious activity and your brain will generate ideas. However, I would point out Pastor who said ideas Air favored by the fertile mind. You have to have a prepared mind to get ideas. In other words, I’m not going to get an idea about how to do a Mars Rover. I don’t think about it, but I think about plays and so I’ll get an idea for that. Or I’ll think about how to talk about creativity, and I’ll get an idea for that. Richard Miles: 25:20So one of the things that I’ve been wanting to do, at the Cade Museum and this, this will warm your heart. Dan is I’ve always thought comedy was a fascinating example of creativity and invention. In that every joke, at least when it’s told the first time, by definition is a surprise, right that if you land a punch line, you’ve got to take people by surprise. And that’s what triggers that laughter and so on. And it’s why comics have to change their material right because if you never change your material, you’d be out of business after a couple of years or sooner. Dan Hunter: 25:48It’s very interesting, because how to understand comedy is also a mystery. We don’t really know why we laugh or why we laugh from an evolutionary point of view. There was a scholar in Alberta, Canada, who claimed that he found the 10 most funny words in English, and his view was that if you just be used those words, people will laugh. Well, I wrote a piece on In all 10 words are on there, and it’s not funny has to do with the lack of surprise right on the funny word. If it’s put in the right place and surprises you, it can. I think comedy is very close to that, because again, in comedy, you have disparate things, put together reversals or the unexpected twist. And I think it’s the same with inventions that to use a cliche that moment of what if we did this in this in this or what? If we didn’t do this, how would that surprise us? How would that change things? And I think again it goes back to curiosity. I used to work with farmers and carpenters and there was always this, let’s just try this, what the hell, see if that works, you get a kick out of it if it doesn’t. Richard Miles: 26:54right? Yeah, and the other interesting about comedy too is it’s context matters, right? You’re not gonna really land a joke unless people see a little bit of themselves or their neighbor, their family member in that joke, which is one generally doesn’t usually transfer across cultures or nations very well, because people have no idea what they’re making fun of. Dan Hunter: 27:11Well, I give you a very interesting example. I was once doing a show in northeastern Missouri for 800 farmers sitting on folding chairs, drinking coffee in a high school gymnasium. I was supposed to make them laugh, and I started it, and I have been doing it for a few years, so I had an idea what worked with farmers and what didn’t. So I started up my usual show and nothing, still throughout the room. I could feel cold sweat rolling down my back. What? They’re not laughing, so I didn’t know what to do. So suddenly I just stopped and I hit the guitar and I muffled the cord silence across the room and I looked out around everybody, and I said, I leaned on the microphone I said, You know, this stuff is funny and one woman, about 12 rows back started to giggle, and then it spread all over the room, and that was fine for the rest of the show, so they didn’t know it was supposed to be funny that they were supposed to laugh. Richard Miles: 28:06They were taking you seriously. Dan Hunter: 28:07Yes, yeah, and when you talk about context, every performance, even exchanging jokes on the street, everybody has to know their role. And we all know that we’ve laughed at jokes that weren’t that funny because we were in a social situation and trying to make people feel good. But that context is everything. Ah, lot of communication resides in the listener, and the listeners expectations. Richard Miles: 28:31So, Dan, my last question was going to tell me a joke. I can’t lift past the opportunity. We are recording this in April 2020. We’re in the midst of this Covid19 pandemic. I wanted to give you a chance to share your thoughts. If you have any on the role of creativity, for better or worse and time are going through, I’ll just give a couple of examples. I mean, obviously a lot of people are trying to work on things like vaccines or new types of treatments. But at the other end of the scale, you have entire ballet companies choreographing things online or symphony orchestra in the same thing. How is creativity playing a role in the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves right now. Dan Hunter: 29:11What is pretty consistent in this is that the creativity doesn’t disappear, doesn’t go underground and vanishes. It’s there one of the pieces I wrote in my newsletter or about the homemade masks and the way people use them to express their individuality. The act of being home alone is an active imagination. How are you going to deal with yourself? What you gonna think about? How do you pass the time. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for people to maintain their imagination and even increase it going to your library shelf, getting the variety of ideas out of there. There is one area I would like to speak out against, though, if I can. I think online education. We’ve been thrown into this national experiment completely unprepared as teachers, parents and students for online education, and I think that is a chilling prospect. First off, I know from the surveys the students don’t like it. Some teachers don’t really object to it. But the heart of the matter is that school is a place where you generate ideas and where you think about issues and where you learn. The home is a place where you play with your dog or yell at your brothers and sisters. I think that we can’t let whatever success or money can be saved by online education. We can’t let that disrupt regular classroom education when the virus passes by, because so much of what we do in school is not just learning skills or data or content. We also learn how to make friends how to get along with each other, how to resolve conflicts. We watch teachers as they model being an adult. So I think that the online education is merely a temporary parachute. Richard Miles: 30:52Well, we’re certainly gonna have lots of testimonials from parents, said Wow. This is a lot harder than we thought, trying to do that also with supplementing various online things. And so I think there may be a little thirst to get back to the very personal with others and in front of others. Dan Hunter: 31:06Yes, and I think for parents to realize how hard it is gives him a better appreciation for teachers. And we need to go back to the question of what’s wrong with our schools. It’s not the curriculum, it’s not the books. It’s. We need to pay teachers more to get good teachers. And if we care about education, then teachers should be well paid. Richard Miles: 31:26Well, I can’t think of a better note that ended on that. So Dan, thank you very much for joining me this morning and hopefully the next interview we could do in person and best of luck to you and look forward to talking to you in the future. Dan Hunter: 31:30Thanks, Richard. Take care. Outro: 31:31Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, located in Gainesville, Florida, Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade Theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Columns and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

What is a vaccine? How long will it take to get one for COVID-19? Are there are other alternatives? What about herd immunity? Our guest is Dr. Peter Khoury, the President and CEO of Ology Bioservices Inc. He is an expert on vaccines and biologics and during his 30-year career, he has worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Merck, and Baxter International. Dr. Khoury has involved in international forums on vaccines, pandemic planning, and biodefense preparation. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio: 0:37 Welcome to another special edition of radio Cade. I’m your host James Di Virgilio. Today we’ll be discussing vaccinations and COVID-19, there’s a lot of information, misinformation questions that you have that we have. And with us today, we have an expert in the subject of not only vaccinations, but also manufacturing them. Dr. Peter Khoury. He is the president and CEO of Ology Bioservices Inc and that is located in Alachua, Florida. He’s been involved with vaccines and biologics for a majority of the 30 year career employed by organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Merck and Company and Baxter international. Dr. Khoury has been an invited speaker for many international forums concerning vaccines. Pandemic planning, biodefense preparation, and has worked on global threat programs against biologics with many ministries of health and oversight committees for large events, such as the Olympic committee. Dr. Khoury, thank you so much for joining us today. Dr. Peter Khoury: 1:34 Thank you for inviting me. James Di Virgilio: 1:35 So the role now that you and Ology are playing in the COVID-19 crisis is essentially to manufacture vaccinations amongst other things which are going to unpack, but it seems prudent to start with asking a simple question, but one that is now talked about a lot. What is a vaccine? Dr. Peter Khoury: 1:54 Probably the simplest answer is a vaccine is a protein that stimulates your immune system to induce immunity or induce antibodies. It’s exactly as if you were exposed to the disease. So when a healthcare worker gives a vaccination, they’re exposing your immune system to something that looks very similar to a particular virus or bacteria, which helps your immune system then react quickly when you’re exposed to the real infection, it has, what’s called immune memory and it remembers, ah , I’ve seen this before and it starts immediately in a sense, producing these antibodies to fight that infection. James Di Virgilio: 2:46 Now , these viruses, I’m a big fan of game theory are essentially alive in a sense, right? They’re adapting, they’re changing and your body’s doing the same. So if you get a good vaccine and it produces the proper, it’s possible that the virus then counters that with a different response of sorts, right? Depending on what we’re looking at, Dr. Peter Khoury: 3:06 It’s amazing that a virus can be that smart, that it quickly can adapt, or it’s in a sense survivor of the fittest. It’s just like an antibiotic. When you have antibiotic resistant organisms, let’s say you have a hundred bacteria and you put an antibiotic on it. It kills 99 of them, but there’s one that has a genetic sequence that makes that a little more difficult to kill. And if you don’t take the full 10 days of the antibiotics, that one tends to still live a little bit and start rowing . And all of a sudden you’ve got a big colony of this that is intermediately resistant. And then you take another dose of antibiotics for another 10 days, but only take five days of it. And you think it’s gone away out of those hundred. There’s one that’s now resistant. So it’s surprising how bacteria or virus can quickly adapt. It’s a numbers game is really what it is. There’s genetic mutations that will cause one of those virus to have mutated enough that it’s getting around your immune system in there for it’s called drifting and shifting when it does that. And you see that with influenza in a sense every year. And it’s a big guessing game on which strains of flu are included in the flu vaccine every year. If you’re lucky, you end up targeting a protein in the vaccine that does not mutate, and then you’re golden , you don’t have to worry about. James Di Virgilio: 4:42 And that’s a lot of what’s going on right now with COVID-19. So on one hand, you read articles, we’ve found the sequencing, we know what’s going on. And then on the other hand you read yet, but that’s really a small portion of the battle. We don’t know how it’s going to react when it’s put into live testing with human patients and subjects. When we’re talking about vaccinations, how successful against a novel virus like this one, which I believe shares a genome with SARS one to a large extent, but how successful are we? Once we identify step one, this is what it looks like and is at getting it to actually work in people. Dr. Peter Khoury: 5:17 That’s a great question. We are very fortunate as it seems that this Corona viruses not doing any real shifting or drifting at all, and you are correct. So the SARS and mirrors virus, so the sudden acute respiratory syndrome in the Mideast respiratory system viruses were also Corona viruses, which are a, I think it’s a genus or a species of virus themselves. And this is just another one. Now this one, for some reason, the human to human transmission has really taken off. And that’s why we’ve now see this pandemic. And they watch this pandemic cascade around the world. If there were this shifting or drifting, they’d be able to take samples from different areas and find out when they run a DNA gels, that there has been some changes in the sequences, but they’re not seeing that at all. So that’s very fortunate that we don’t see up that allows them vaccine R and D personnel to try many different approaches to developing a vaccine. And the most common youth approaches in the past were what they called an inactivated vaccine or killed vaccine, which they take it and they either irradiated or they chemically treat it till it’s killed. And then they inject it into you and your body will develop antibodies against that, or what’s called a live attenuated vaccine, which they select specifically for a strain of that virus that when you’re infected with it, you get what’s called a subclinical infection. You develop antibodies, but for some reason you don’t end up getting the fever and the respiratory problems and all of that. Instead, you just sorta produce the antibodies for it. And so those are widely used, but there are now some very complicated ways of addressing tough issues with vaccines. HIV for example, that’s been around since early eighties and still, there’s not a vaccine available for that. I always look at that as the big mystery for developing a vaccine, we were awarded a contract for what’s called a DNA vaccine, and this was with a company called Anovo. And this is one of those very complex approaches, which we feel very confident will work, where they take a piece of DNA that codes for what’s called a spike protein. They put it in a plasmid in, this is then put in a syringe and injected using a special type of what’s called electroporation, where it opens up your cell to take in this little piece of DNA in this circle called a plasmid and it uses your own cellular system to make the protein. So your body starts producing this protein, some of your cells do. And then your other cells that normally produce antibody will see this protein being made and start producing antibody against it. So it’s a unique approach. It can be done very quickly and low cost, and that seem important thing. And one of the reasons why this approach is being looked at. James Di Virgilio: 8:41 Now, how often would this type of approach be used and things people are familiar with vaccinations for like an influenza. And , and if you don’t know anything about vaccines and you’re more like me, like you mentioned, there’s like seven or eight or nine or 10 different types. There’s different ways you can create a vaccine. This is one of them. How often has this been used successfully in other. Dr. Peter Khoury: 9:02 So it’s very novel. I don’t know of a DNA vaccine yet that has been put on the market because it’s such a new approach. And in fact, if you look at all the vaccines that have been available for the last 30 years, all of them basically fit into five different approaches. The two that I had mentioned, and then there’s conjugation. There’s, polysaccharide, there’s another one that is escaping me just basically four or five different ways that vaccines are currently manufactured. So some of the ones that people are talking about now are these very novel biotech approaches that appear to be safer, faster, lower cost, ways of vaccinating. So I’m excited that this innovations finally being used and may produce a vaccine that is both affordable, can be produced in large quantity and available may be sooner than some of the older methods used. James Di Virgilio: 10:04 And let’s unpack some of that because if we were to find using a traditional method, the actual vaccine that works, we have to go through these different phases. So step one, we’re going to start with maybe animal testing or something similar. I know chicken eggs tends to be a big one with a lot of things, but you can’t do that with coronavirus. So that’s a problem that doesn’t work. And then I know that in only 16% of the cases, do you make it from phase one to phase three, with a working vaccine? And then how often does your vaccine work? It might only work 50% of the time. And is that good enough? Right? So you have all these hurdles to overcome. That’s why it takes a long time. 18 months tends to be the soonest. People think it can happen. How different is that with your solution potentially. Dr. Peter Khoury: 10:44 So ours also about 18 months, just the clinical study. So not talking about the preclinical animal studies, but when you actually get to the point where you’re starting to inject it in humans, it’s usually between six and eight years to get through the phase one, two and three. So phase one normally is just a very small study with a few adults to make sure that it’s safe. And they do some where they look at the effectiveness on those few people. And if no one kills over in a sense, or they’re getting some kind of immune response and there’s at least something that they can measure, they’ll go into phase two, which is larger, maybe a couple hundred people in some of those are age appropriate. Then. So if they’re trying to go down to infants, they’ll then throw in a few infants into that study and they’ll do, what’s called a dose ranging study and look at what’s the optimal dose that you would use for them. And they really start looking at the side effects and other things cause they have a larger pool to draw from once that’s through and they get the go ahead to go on to phase three, they go into this much larger trial than some of these, especially with infants can be tens of thousands because they’re trained to pick up the background noise, a very small number of crucial side effects that potentially could happen. And they’re taking very detailed measurements of how safe and effective it could be. Once it gets to that, it goes in front of the FDA. It gets approval for use or rejected, but usually by then, they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Hopefully it gets approved, but even then many companies commit to what’s called a phase four study, which is a post-marketing commitment to follow up with people that have been vaccinated and also submit to the FDA. Anytime there’s adverse events, send them information. So they keep track of it also. So it’s very useful. I’ve got to say for every vaccine that goes through, there’s probably 50 that don’t make it to the market. So there’s a lot of money spent on R and D. Our government’s been very good at funding, quite a bit of novel R and D, which has been great. Healthcare is expensive. There’s no doubt. We’re one of the few countries that really support innovative research and development. And I hope that people still continue to do that. I think that any shorter than a year and a half to do those studies, you would have to do it on what’s called a patient name basis where people would have to sign a form and say, I understand it hasn’t been fully tested, but I’m willing to take it untested because the risk benefit ratio to me is such that I’m willing to take on that risk. James Di Virgilio: 13:39 And that’s something like Ebola, right? When Ebola came out, people were saying, well, we can’t even have a control study because nobody wants to placebo. Just give me a chance with this vaccine versus letting this run its course, which creates difficulty in developing a vaccine. How often are these vaccine side effects worse than what we’re dealing with? Is that something that’s frequent or is it pretty unlikely that even a testing vaccine is worse than what someone would already have? Dr. Peter Khoury: 14:04 That’s a great question too. The only one that I can think of that they had some problems with. And if you go back and look at the data in hindsight, they had overreacted. Some was with the original Rotavirus vaccine, which is a terrible issue. It’s a diarrheal disease that infants get. And when they first did the studies, the studies looked fine, but it wasn’t picking up these incidents of what’s called intussusception, which is when the intestines fold in on themselves. And once they started using it widely around the United States, within the first two or three months, I had all these infants die of this intussusception they immediately pulled the vaccine from the market. People were in an uproar, but more children died of Rotavirus. And another great example is when you look at polio vaccine, so polio, which still hasn’t been eradicated, there’s still a few places around the world that have polio. They were using oral polio vaccine for years, but in one, in a million cases, when a child gets oral polio vaccine, it converts back into wild type polio. And the child actually ends up getting polio. So one in a million children end up getting polio from the vaccine, but the other 999,999 children are all protected and fine, but they were so upset about that one child that a lot of money has been spent to develop alternate vaccines for polio. James Di Virgilio: 15:41 Yeah. I find that to be interesting. And I’m really glad we’re talking about this now, because to me, everything in life is a risk reward continuum. It’s very rare that you get a very pure two. Plus two is four here all the time. This is the obvious decision. Most often, it’s that sort of decision. Well, if we do nothing, we have this. And if we do something it’s possible that we have this side effect, we don’t know, but what is better than starting with our baseline. And that’s a really good contextual answer. So it sounds like the majority of vaccines are not generally super risky, worse than what we’re trying to fix, but maybe they’re not as effective as others. So if I’m a company, big pharma or otherwise, and I want to manufacture this, right, we have the lab that discovers the vaccine. They come to me and they say, James, we want you to manufacture this. How likely am I to take this on? Because the numbers seem very low. It seems likely I’m going to lose a lot of money and not all of these outbreaks we’re dealing with. Come back again. So maybe I develop a vaccine and now it’s sort of just gone. How likely is it for companies to want to fund these initiatives? Dr. Peter Khoury: 16:39 That also was a great question because all we know right now is that we’re having a pandemic and we’re not clear whether it’s flattened out or not personally, I don’t think it has yet. And I think still may be the worst is yet to come. And I hope it doesn’t act like a influenza, a pandemic where you get a small wave. And then a few months later, maybe this fall or a little later, you get a much larger wave that travels around the world and will kill hundreds of millions instead of a million or two. So I’m just hoping this does not happen or that it takes on the route that influenza does where it’s North hemisphere for half the year, then goes down to the Southern hemisphere, then swings back up to the North. They’re not quite sure because we haven’t had the experience yet with this Corona virus. What they do now is it’s not like SARS. It’s not like MERS where it was here for a few months and then suddenly just sort of disappeared. This just seems to be staying. So with that, the question is, will it become a yearly vaccine for people. Will there eventually be some drifting of it. So they’ll have to be a new vaccine every year. How profitable will it be for companies? Will companies start looking at other emerging infectious diseases and start the research and development earlier, or will the government fund that early research and development? Because there are emerging infectious diseases around the world that we don’t have in the United States, but make some background noises in other areas that could easily be the next coronavirus . So when do you start investing in that? So you’re a year ahead of where you are now. James Di Virgilio: 18:32 And that’s a great topical point to discuss. You mentioned something earlier about research being done, and I’m not sure how many people know this, but the medical research done in the US and innovative work like you’re mentioning is a hundred times or whatever the number is. It’s so significantly more than anywhere else in the world. If you look at that graph, it’s the US and everyone else is tiny. I think Germany is second on that. And their infinitesimal compared to what’s done here. There’s a lot of negative emotions around what big pharma and other stuff does. And we’re not going to get into that. Other than to say that it is a fact that so many dollars in this country go towards trying to solve these problems. And then here we are with things that are unpredictable to a certain end. Now you worked for what maybe now has become the most famous right kind of foundation. There is with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, looking at trying to solve this problem. Bill Gates has been beating this drum for a long time. This is the biggest threat to humanity. What you just mentioned was sort of getting ahead of this. Is there a way for us, was there a way for us, will there be a way for us to sort of prescriptively try to get ahead of some of these things you just mentioned, things that are bubbling up elsewhere, we know kind of exist. How do we do that? Dr. Peter Khoury: 19:34 So there actually is a list that is kept by the government. The CDC has one, the world health organization has one . If you go on their websites, they talk about emerging infectious diseases. And in fact, the Gates foundation has an area that focuses on these emerging infectious diseases also. And so people do keep tabs on those large pharma, looks at them and says, there’s no value to us because we lose money, investing on things that we think are going to be valuable, but it’s just hard to solve the problem. You think of the billions of dollars that have been spent on HIV vaccine instill of course one is not available. So they think about that, but then they look at something that’s just emerging, especially if it’s in the developing world, they say, it’s just not worth that someone else should fund it. Gates foundation, fortunately does, which is great. The welcome trust is another, that does. So there are some that do that funding. The US government will fund some of them. If they feel that there may be a threat of it, either coming to the US especially some of the vector diseases that are transmitted through ticks or through mosquitoes, or could be used in biodefense, which is another area that people don’t pay that much attention to. We remember the anthrax scare and what happened. Then that’s another area that I think probably needs more focus from all governments. So both pandemic planning for other things than just influenza in also good preparation for biodefense. James Di Virgilio: 21:17 And there’s this interesting thing. When you think about humanity, that always strikes me. I’m an investor professionally, and with investing, nothing is black and white. It’s a lot of study of people and behavior and things that we know to be true. And one thing that is definitely true is we’re not very good at predicting anything as humans. In fact, we’re the most accurate at predicting the weather and we can go about 48 hours before that falls off a cliff of actually being significant statistically. So when it comes to these really complicated problems, I often think of the three body problem. You can know A, and you can know B and you can know everything about factor A and factor B, but you can’t know C you just can’t know where it is. And I think people sometimes pale to understand how complicated and chaotic these systems are. And just because we know A, and B does not mean that we can ever predict C, it’s not easy. It’s not simple. It’s not a one week or one month process. And even with our best foresight efforts, we may never get the prediction. Correct. And then there goes a lot of money into something that may yield nothing, right? And you’re kind of always doing this where, like you mentioned, do I put my dollar? So now that we’re facing COVID-19 and actively, we know we need to solve this problem. The engines are running, the creativity is going, innovation is happening. You are mentioning something that’s brand new right now with regards to trying to save this. And then there are also some other techniques out there. Tell me about using plasma from recovering patients to protect the most seriously ill what’s going on with that. Dr. Peter Khoury: 22:41 Yea I know that that has been on the news and it is an effective way of treating. So what they do is they take convalescent plasma from patients that have recovered, because it has antibodies in it. And those include antibodies that protect against COVID-19. And it’s a fast way of developing. What’s referred to as hyper immune state, where you have more antibodies than normally your body would produce. So they take the most ill people in, they’ll put in this convalescent plasma, which they know contains these antibodies while they contain a lot of antibodies and other things. But for sure it contains the antibodies that help that person recover from COVID-19 and it boosts their immune system of the target patient. That downside is the possibility of their body in a sense rejecting it, it can cause a negative immune response due to something in that plasma or in this has happened in the past a yet to be identified foreign item, which could cause issues to recipients later on. And that’s with anything that’s blood related. I mean, we saw it with HIV at the very beginning where people were getting blood transfusions, you saw with it mad cow disease at times where prions were transmitted through blood transfusions, but there is another solution. And actually we’re working on it. We were given a grant to work with the Vanderbilt University medical center to produce what’s called a monoclonal antibody. So what they do is they take the antibodies from a convalescent patient, and they’re able to find out which specific antibody is the one that works the best. And they clone only select for the cell or the piece of DNA that produces that protein, that codes for that antibody. And they’re able to replicate that in produce just that one antibody, and you can do it in big fermentors or bio-reactors. And you produce these monoclonal antibodies, which are all exactly the same and mass produced . Those had a fairly low cost that can be much faster than vaccines. Now you may see monoclonals before the end of the year, and those most likely will go to healthcare professionals, those immediately on the frontline for protection, and also those that are most critically ill would get these monoclonal antibodies. Those will definitely be lifesavers. And I suspect that the first will be out quite a bit before the vaccine will be, James Di Virgilio: 25:30 That’s like a triage solution, but not the best longterm. Is that a three ? Dr. Peter Khoury: 25:35 Yeah. It’s not long term because eventually your body will remove those antibodies. So you’re talking a few weeks protection when you’re talking a vaccine, you’re talking usually a much longer term protection of years, if not the rest of your life, sometimes vaccines. If they elicit a longterm immune response, you only get them once. And that’s that you’re protected the rest of your life. James Di Virgilio: 25:59 So the way out of this is seemingly to have a vaccine. That’s what people are saying. Dr. Peter Khoury: 26:03 It is. James Di Virgilio: 26:03 The world’s not going to truly relax into, we have a vaccine or this just maybe mysteriously disappears, which seems very unlikely at this point. Dr. Peter Khoury: 26:10 Right? And even if it disappeared, there’s always the chance of it coming back. The same with SARS , the same with MERS. I mean, all of those could somehow reappear. James Di Virgilio: 26:23 So we need to get a vaccine. We know that it takes a long time to actually manufacture a vaccine because it’s not that simple. It’s not like we have all the supply available in the world to produce a vaccine. We can’t just in a day, produce enough to give to the whole world. Right. So even when we get it right, it takes a while to actually produce enough to give out to all the people that need these vaccines. Here we are in the US in a country that has all of these resources. What if we’re not in the U S what if we’re in a developing country? What does it look like for them? Dr. Peter Khoury: 26:49 Yeah. So in the US yeah, we’re fortunate. We have a lot of vaccine manufacturers, large manufacturers here, and in the time of pandemic borders closed down. And so if you don’t have vaccine manufacturing on your soil, it can be a real issue. That’s times where the, WHO, UNICEF the large manufacturers get together and say, we need to do something for the developing world. And they actually will donate vaccines that are used in those areas. I know of some manufacturing processes, and we actually in our building bring in some of these new types of manufacturing, just on a trial basis. And some of them are small enough that they literally could be put in a shipping container and take into areas where vaccine needs to be produced immediately. But then you run into problems with clean water and power and other things. But someone has taken the first step to develop a concept of manufacturing that now whether you can get a turn on solar power and you ship in water, where that, or you make the manufacturing process somehow different, I think eventually they’ll have something that is a vaccine in a box that you could ship to these countries that will produce low cost vaccine very quickly. The smartest thing right now is to stockpile vaccine. If you can, if you’re a country and you have the wealth to do it, and you don’t have vaccine manufacturing, if there’s a chance for like the release of smallpox , for something as a bio threat, you may want to stock pile some of that vaccine, because if it ever happened, you’re going to wish you had. James Di Virgilio: 28:44 Right. I have something there. So herd immunity is talked about a lot, right? I’ve seen that we need maybe 50 to 60% of the population to have herd immunity. And it seems like there’s a lot of misconceptions starting with the UK, which that was their original strategy. Then they kind of shifted away from it. Now, maybe going to go back to selective release, to build herd immunity, assuming that this goes more of the route of HIV for a little bit, it takes longer than 18 months to get a vaccine, or are we able to build herd immunity without a vaccine? Or is this something where we would just continually have recurring outbreaks of the same significant level year after year? Dr. Peter Khoury: 29:21 It depends on what the virus does. If the virus goes away, you’ll never develop herd immunity. Just the people that happened to come down with it . The same with SARS. I’m curious if someone had SARS, are they immune to this Corona virus? That’d be interesting. I’m sure someone’s looked at it because there may be some cross reactivity, the two, but eventually enough people would be infected and recovered that you’d reach that 50 or 60% mark. And then it’s again, a game of numbers where the virus no longer is transmitted rampantly through the population. And so exposure risk goes down dramatically. When you reach that. The other approach, when you do have vaccines or monoclonal antibodies, is you do ring vaccination, where you find an area where people are infected and around it, you vaccinate everyone in the area. And so it’s contained. And that actually has been shown to work very, very well. Now, if in Wu Han, they had identified and raise their hand very early and put something in place where they either stop the movement of people within that area, which is probably all they could do. Then it probably could have been restricted much, much more, or if there was a vaccine available, vaccinating everyone around the city and making sure people didn’t move out until they were over it. James Di Virgilio: 30:49 Right. And that’s the key is stopping the transmission. If we have five people that are immune, got a vaccine there, then all of a sudden you have the one sick person, the virus can’t get passed on, which is obviously the goal. So let’s spend just a few minutes talking about something that maybe is been confused or is confusing. Are we flattening the curve, therefore reducing the total number of people that will get this, or are we just shifting the total number of people to get this to a lower monthly average? So basically same total are going to get it regardless, but we’re just spreading it out. Dr. Peter Khoury: 31:19 See we never know again, because we don’t know if the virus will just dissipate and disappear. If it doesn’t then as you lower the curve, you’re maybe spreading it out. But when you spread it out like that, the vaccine comes out a year and a half later, then there’s a lot of people that still can be vaccinated that haven’t had it. And so there’s a much lower risk that they’re going to get it and then die, or have significant morbidity in mortality from the actual disease itself. So flattening the curve helps in two ways. One is if the virus stops circulating, more people were suffered the consequences of having the disease. The other is if it continues to circulate, you’re buying yourself time to get something that could, in a sense, truncate people getting sick, which would be the vaccine in this case, James Di Virgilio: 32:14 Is there a consideration to extreme flattening of the curve, which we know will potentially lead to more people, not getting it in the short term, but with the other side, which is how much damage do you do to society. And there seems to be two effects. We have Spanish influenza where most cities did nothing, and they took the full brunt of that peak, heavy hits, 50 million die. And then you have what we’re doing now, which is the first world’s response to really do exactly what you just said. Is there a balance and consideration as a medical person, do you think of what do we do over here economically, if everyone loses their job for a year, or is there just, this is the way we have to do it in order to reduce these cases? Dr. Peter Khoury: 32:51 That’s a real difficult one because as I look around me and I see the unemployment rates skyrocket 10%, 10% last night, I was listening to the news and I just couldn’t believe that it’s gone up so much and that’s just in the US let alone other countries. And I think it’s going to definitely cause a global bump, how quickly we recover from that. I think we’re pretty wrestling and the whole world will recover, but all of the ships are going down at the same time. So the question is, how much impact does it really have on the economy? If the whole globe is shrinking, if everyone’s economies being hit by the same thing. And that’s the part I don’t understand is it could be a lot worse if it were just the US and everyone else was still thriving. That probably would be even worse for us. But when everyone’s going through the same hurt, it’s still bad. There’s no doubt about it because production’s down. People just don’t feel like they’re productive, which is also a mindset thing. It’s, it’s not good for anyone. That’s a real tough question to ask, but there is a trade off there. There’s no doubt about it. And if there were a way to protect everyone and they could go to work, and we knew that they stopped shaking hands and everyone stayed exactly six feet away from each other, eventually the virus would go away. James Di Virgilio: 34:20 And I think that’s, what’s interesting is we tend to look at these things in static environments, but the reality is every day we’re learning more. And , and even though we know that maybe there could be, like you said, a rebound in the fall, everything we’re learning every day helps to apply how we might return to normalcy. And I think one thing I’ve really learned is that we respond very well as humans. We’re not good predictors. We’re excellent responders. We’re very creative. We’re great problem solvers, but we have to have the problem in front of us, which we now have. And like you mentioned, I think the doomsday scenarios of us flattening the curve and no one doing anything for months is probably unrealistic because there will be some tactical solutions to get people back. Bill Gates, himself, I saw just said, I think a day or two ago that the global economic reaction to this will not be immediate recovery. This will take time, which I think he’s totally correct. And there’s also something else that I think has gotten lost in this, whether the government should have reacted faster or slower or whatever the case may be. Some things in life are beyond our grasp to understand right away, could China to something earlier. Absolutely, will that hopefully be a model for the world later? Yes, but we don’t have a clear solution forward. Like you mentioned, we hope that we’re thinking of the trade offs. If I choose this course of action, hopefully I won’t bankrupt the whole world, but if I don’t choose that course of action, how many more people get it right now? Can we handle every, all these questions? They’re very difficult to answer. And so I think day by day is the course to say, what’s the new data say, what are we doing? And ultimately, when it comes to a vaccination, is it helpful to have more testing at all? Or do we already have all that we need on the vaccination front to get all that research done? Testing is irrelevant to actually developing a vaccine. Dr. Peter Khoury: 35:51 I think testing is very important. There’s no doubt about it, but how much of it can be done concomitantly with administering it to people that are at high risk, let’s say so that’s when you get into that whole risk benefit again. So the very first people in the phase one and two, should they be the emergency room workers cause you now, Hey, if it works, that’s great for them. If it doesn’t work, maybe a few will have some issues, but there’s a chance that it’s going to work because some of these are pretty tried and true methods. It’s a real trade off. And it all comes down to that risk and benefit. People tend to like pointing their fingers at the FDA, but the FDA has a job of keeping people safe. And when you’re administering in our country, over 300 million doses of this, they give a vaccine to every person in the country. That’s a lot of people, that’s a lot of lives that you’re taking responsibility for, but there is an urgency to , so again, there it’s that whole risk benefit. James Di Virgilio: 36:55 Right? And I tend to be someone who thinks central governing organizations are slow and inefficient in general. Because again, it’s hard for us to prescriptively know what’s going on, but in times like these there’s things that I think are being done well, which the FDA has greatly relaxed the hurdles that exist to create a vaccine. So no matter how you feel about the FDA, if you’re more like me, the things I’d like to see it be a little more expedited in times it’s happening now. And in fact, I think it’s safe to say, if we just got rid of the FDA right now, it sounds like the vaccination time wouldn’t be any faster than 18 months at this point in time. Or if it was, it wouldn’t be significantly more, right ? So we can take that off the table. The FDA is not going to materially affect the speed with which we’re creating a vaccine for COVID-19, which is a good thing to get out there. All right . This has been a wonderful wide ranging expert discussion on vaccinations. Certainly we applaud Ology for doing something that’s brand new, which is really neat, right? This DNA vaccination. We look forward to hearing more about this as we go on to conclude the podcast. Is there anything that we haven’t talked about yet that you feel is something you’d like to discuss? Dr. Peter Khoury: 37:57 I feel like I’m the most fortunate CEO in the world. I lead a company that is still privately held and with a large majority of our shareholders that are current or past employees. So many of them are really dedicated individuals. It really see the value that we bring to the market, not just bottom line profits. It allows us to truly support programs where we can combine the measurement of profitability and potential life saved to what Gates foundation does when we decide I’m bringing in new work. So I mentioned that we do work with the government and we do a lot of commercial work with everything from small laboratories to large multinationals. But we also do work for NGLs is like the Gates foundation and others. That really is not all that profitable. And I know that these doses are going to developing world countries and whatever, but my team who, as I said, are everyone that joined their company is given options for shares. The first day they joined, because I believe that if they’re invested in the company, that they will always do the right thing, they’ll always raise their hand when there’s an issue. And they’ll make sure that we have the best quality and we’re the safest. And they’re the ones that agreed that they don’t mind taking a little less money if we’re helping to save lives in doing so. So I’m still proud of them in taking that mindset on it. It’s a lot of the younger, what I’d call millennials, the younger crowd that really likes that. And when we bring in new programs, we have to sit everyone down and explain to them exactly what it is and how it’s used and what the diseases and how many people died , because they want to understand exactly how they’re helping the world and God bless them for doing it. James Di Virgilio: 39:58 Yeah. Love your neighbor as yourself. Right. And there’s a lot of that going on now, there’s one silver lining to something like COVID-19, it does bring the world together and makes you recognize there’s really no such thing as race or gender difference or things like that. Because at the end of the day, we’re a human race and we’re all people and this virus doesn’t care. It doesn’t at all about the fact that you’re a different color from someone else that does care that you are human. And like you mentioned, we can care for our neighbors. We can care for those that have less resources than we have. And we should use that if we have the ability to assist. And the culture at your company obviously is doing that from day one, which will I’m sure leads you to better results in the long run. Anyway. Dr. Peter Khoury: 40:34 It, will I’m sure. Thank you. James Di Virgilio: 40:36 Dr. Peter Khoury. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been absolutely fantastic. We’ve certainly enjoyed visiting with you and for Radio Cade. I’m James Di Virgilio. Outro: 40:45 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

Dr. Richard Melker holds 69 issued US Patents, with others pending, as well as hundreds of foreign patents. A University of Florida Professor Emeritus of Anesthesiology, Melker has invented everything from disappearing sunscreen to a new type of oxygen saturation sensor. His first invention was an emergency airway, which is used primarily by the military and by EMT’s. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:38 Serial inventors, I’m not talking about people who invented Cornflakes and Wheaties , but people who have lots and lots of ideas and patents, and today I’m pleased to welcome one such person, Richard Melker, a University of Florida, professor emeritus of anesthesiology who holds 69 issued U.S. patents with many others pending as well as hundreds of foreign patents. Welcome to Radio Cade, Dr. Melker. -Thank you so much for having me. Ok if I call you Richard? -Please, two Richards in the room here, what could go wrong? So Richard, you hold patents for everything from disappearing sunscreen to a new kind of oxygen saturation sensor. So, first thing I got to ask you are patents like kids, do you even have a favorite or do you just have to love all of them equally? Dr. Richard Melker: 1:20 Patents are like kids. I have to love all of them equally. But, the reality is is that the patents that have resulted in medical devices are the most satisfying to me. Obviously, when you find out that you’ve invented something that a company starts to manufacture and people use it and it affects people’s lives, particularly when it’s saved somebodies life, that’s the most satisfying thing of all. And over the years, I’ve gotten letters from people in the fields where I’ve invented technology thanking me, and there’s nothing better than having that. Richard Miles: 1:55 That’s an interesting point, and I think maybe of interest to people who aren’t as familiar with this world is that there may be a popular misconception that an inventor, when they get a patent, they already know exactly what that thing is going to be used for and how it’s going to be applied. But very often the case is you’re patenting a new process or a new technology or a new insight. And the end use of that may not be clear for quite some time. Is that more or less accurate? Dr. Richard Melker: 2:18 I would think that somewhat accurate, in my case, usually when I conceive of a product and when you’re inventing something, it’s called the conception. When I conceive of it, I’ve already found out that there’s something lacking in the medical field that there’s a need for. So in my case, I think that I tell people that I get frustrated when I can’t do something or help somebody. And therefore I conceive of something. And then we eventually develop the product and it’s commercialized. Richard Miles: 2:49 You usually have a fairly good idea in mind and what the end use is going to be when you’re actually filing the patent? Dr. Richard Melker: 2:54 In my case, I think that’s true, of course, with many of my products once they’re on the market, somebody else does , I can use this for something else or I have a better way or a different way of using it. So, I would say that I conceive of a way of using it frequently, that’s what happens. It’s used as I conceived of it, but there are a lot of really bright people out there. And they’re always thinking of very good ideas, particularly in the medical profession. -Right. And I’m sure in other scientific professions as well. Richard Miles: 3:23 So let’s talk about a few of those ideas that you’ve had. Your background is anesthesiology, you see problems that gee, I wish there was a solution, and that was kind of the starting point, right? For some of these inventions. What was your first patent? Why don’t we start there? Dr. Richard Melker: 3:35 My first issued patent on my first attempt that happened, there are quite different. So my first ideas came out when I was a intern and a resident out in California, and I would be involved in taking care of a child and there was something that I wanted to have available that wasn’t available. So at that point being a resident, I was able to file my own patents. I wasn’t really working for somebody who had rights to that technology. And I took our meager savings and I spent it on my patent attorney and it turned out that both of the ideas I had had already been patented, so my wife put a stop to me filing for patents. When I became a faculty member at the University of Florida, I conceived of the first product that ended up being patented. We found a company to license it from the University of Florida. They developed the product and it was extremely successful, -and what was that product? The first product I developed was an emergency airway. So normally, in an emergency situation, an anesthesiologist or a , an ER physician or an EMT , will put a tube down the throat of the patient so that they can breathe for the patient. Under certain circumstances, particularly with facial trauma or other unusual situations, you’re unable to put that tube in. So, I developed a emergency airway that could be inserted in the area of the trachea to ventilate those patients, and the predominant use today is in the military. Although, it’s used outside the hospital in what we call pre-hospital care, emergency care fairly frequently as well. Richard Miles: 5:17 Interesting. So have most of your patents been in the same general realm of breathing, or how would you characterize most of the , your ideas? Dr. Richard Melker: 5:25 Right. So early on, I specialized in one area, and so most of my patents were related to that. I became very interested in ventilation, which is a big topic right now with the Coronavirus, is how we’re going to bend where all these people who have pneumonia. And there were ventilators, very sophisticated, expensive ventilators that are used in the hospitals. But what do you do outside the hospital? Well, what they were doing at the time is just squeezing a bag, and so my collaborators and I, and I think it’s very important to point out that a lot of times, it’s not by yourself, you work with other people. So my collaborators and I started looking at ways of making small ventilators that could be used outside the hospital. Richard Miles: 6:08 Interesting. So one thing that just occurred to me, there are a lot of really good doctors out there that see patients every day, they know what they’re doing, they’re a lot of good researchers out there, but they don’t all become inventors. So the question is, why? What distinguishes you in the fact that not only are you there in a clinical situation, you say, well, here’s a problem, and gosh, I wish we had this, you actually then take that extra step and invent. Why don’t other people do that? Right? Cause they see the same things presumably, and they had the same frustrations and problems. So why doesn’t every doctor working in a clinic, also an inventor? Dr. Richard Melker: 6:37 So, you made an extremely important observation. I believe that doctors all the time are jury rigging or working with technology that they could make better, but they’re so busy and they don’t understand, or they haven’t been taught all the steps that are required to take the idea of how they would improve that product to the point where it becomes a commercial product. And at the university of Florida, at one point, I actually taught a course to the faculty in the college of medicine on how to protect their ideas, because it’s very important that you protect the idea, how you disclose the idea to the university and then how the steps after that, that are required for commercialization. Richard Miles: 7:23 That’s a great point . If I understand you correctly, essentially these doctors are inventors, they just don’t know it. They’ve come up with shortcuts that they’re actually employing, but that extra step of thinking, okay, what would this look like as an actual product? They either don’t have the time or the knowledge to do that. Dr. Richard Melker: 7:36 Exactly. So, yes, I think the knowledge part is extremely important. I will take one quick aside and tell you that, at one point we put together a course for people in industry who actually commercialize the products, brought them into the hospitals and let them see how their products were being used. And their engineers in particular, recognize improvements in their products when they saw how the doctors were having to use their products and work around problems with the products. So, to me, the perfect world is where engineers and physicians in my field get together and jointly understand what the needs are. Richard Miles: 8:19 That reminds me of a story I heard several years ago, I want to say, it’s the University of Arizona, maybe Arizona State University, in which their school of entrepreneurship decided that instead of just sort of taking a bunch of business students or future MBAs say, okay, be an entrepreneur, think of a company idea and market it. What they found when they did that is the quality of the ideas was actually not that great. You’d have business students go , okay, we’re going to do a tee shirt shop, you know, there was no revolutionary breakthrough, but what they did is they paired them with, I think nursing students and the nurses had all sorts of ideas, exactly what you’re talking about, having been in the environment in which you’re trying to get something done, and you’ve got to modify this or jury rig that, they had the actual insights into what could be commercially successful. And those people paired with the business people got great entrepreneurs or at least entrepreneurial projects for school in a way that just telling somebody think of a great idea, didn’t yield those sort of results. Dr. Richard Melker: 9:09 Absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head. And one of the courses I taught was a course in the college of engineering, where we got engineers and students from the business school and we would have people come in and tell them what their ideas were. And we would put teams together so that we could do a business plan, we could figure out how to commercialize the product. You need, all those different people. And the course was on product development and intellectual property. So they had to learn about patent law to protect the idea and then they had to figure out how to take this idea and turn it into a commercial product. So that’s a wonderful way to work and if you look at many of my products, there are a lot of inventors on them. Many of them are engineers. Some of them are physicians and occasionally we even have somebody from the business school. Richard Miles: 10:01 Occasionally you’ll let them in right? Okay, so that kind of sets up my next question. And that is sort of the overall process. I mean, you have a lot of experience in this and been doing this for awhile and in general, I would say the United States does this pretty well, certainly in the last three to four decades, getting those research ideas out of the laboratory and into the marketplace. And that involves a cast of hundreds if it’s done, well. But as you said, the universities tend now to give much more help and assistance to the researchers, whether it’s filing a patent or doing a licensing. Do we have a system now that is, perfect is not the right word, but works fine? Or are there other things that universities in combination with government and in combination with the market need to be doing better to keep this round of innovation going and that whole cycle of entrepreneurship and innovation. Dr. Richard Melker: 10:47 Right. So, the interest in intellectual property and product development really got its seed with the Bidell act in 1981, where federally funded research, if new intellectual property came out of it, the universities were allowed to exploit it. They didn’t have to turn it over to the federal government. And so offices of technology licensing under a variety of names have flourished at many schools. And if there’s a medical school or an engineering school, that’s the predominant locations in the university where that type of technology is developed. So my answer to your question is things are far better than they used to be, a lot more intellectual property is being managed and commercialize . But I still think that somewhere during medical education or engineering education, people need to know that when they have a good idea, how to get that through the system and eventually commercialized. Richard Miles: 11:47 Right. And we went to an interesting presentation last night and the subject, it was actually some new venture fund concentrating on Florida, and he rolled out some stats there, and one of the issues of course is financing, right? Because you’ve got this great idea, you’ve tested it, technology is solid, but you’ve got to do some more hurdles before it gets to market. And one of those is raised a lot of money. And to this day, even though Florida is like fourth largest state in the country, lots of technologies coming out , the universities, most of the venture capital still on the West coast and Seattle and LA area and or the upper Northeast corridor and not a whole lot in Florida. Which I think still comes as a surprise to us because I knew that was the case 10 years ago. But I would have thought by now, surely there’d be a lot of firms wanting to capitalize on these ideas coming out of Florida. Have you seen any change in the time that you’re doing this in terms of financing available for new ideas? Dr. Richard Melker: 12:37 There have been several attempts to increase the amount of funding into the state of Florida, but as you pointed out, it still predominates on the West coast and in the Northeast, I, as you know, started a company in 2005 here in Florida, and that not only for us, but other companies that have started out of products that were developed at the University of Florida or technologies that were developed at the University of Florida has always been the issue is getting venture capitalists to come to Gainesville, or you have to go see them. And many of the companies, as you’re probably aware, have actually moved to locations in the United States, which are much more favorable for raising venture capital and where the people who have that interest to concentrated. We just haven’t in the state of Florida have been able to attract that as yet. Richard Miles: 13:28 Let’s go back and talk about your company that you started at Exhale, right in 2005, was that your first entry into sort of full fledge in the business world? Or have you started companies before that at all? Dr. Richard Melker: 13:38 That was the first company that I founded, where I was a founder in the company and decided to make the leap from being full time at the University of Florida to part time at the company and part time at the University of Florida. And I could only do that because I moved that of academic medicine and patient care into the research realm. So being in the research realm, the University of Florida, even though I had to jump through some hoops, was willing to allow me to spend part of my time developing this new company and part of my time as a faculty member at the University of Florida. Richard Miles: 14:13 So a number of guests on the show have done something similar. They’ve gone from academia to starting their own company or being involved at a senior level. Tell us what that was like for you. It doesn’t always go swimmingly that transition cause they’re two really different worlds, right? Academia, and then startup are , or are they, what was it like for you? Dr. Richard Melker: 14:29 It was interesting. I think that’s the way to put it. I mean, you had to go out and raise money and you always underestimate how much money and how much time it’s going to take to develop a technology and find somebody to actually manufacture it. So, on the one hand I had to learn a whole new discipline, but fortunately there were people in Gainesville with business experience who we partnered with. So they were founders of the company as well, because I had taught these courses at the University of Florida. And because many of my prior inventions had already been commercialized, I had the opportunity to not only be a physician, but to work with engineers and the business school. And in many cases I knew what company would be most interested in commercializing the product, so I had a lot of interactions that probably most physicians didn’t have at that point. Richard Miles: 15:24 It wasn’t exactly a cold start. You had a front row seat to see the process and how it’s done. -And I did it anyway. Right. That’s good point. Yeah, yeah, I have seen some examples, unfortunately, of academics and particularly doctors, who don’t make the transition quite so well because they treat the business world and investors as students who don’t quite get their brilliant idea and you probably learn VC types don’t really like to be talked down to, right? You can’t patronize them that you have to explain your technology, but not in a way that someone might, if they were say in a lecture hall with a bunch of freshmen. Dr. Richard Melker: 15:57 Right. So one of the things I think is my strong suit is the ability to talk to people who are, non-physicians, not in the medical world, in the language that they understand what it is that we’re trying to do. Right. And I think that is extremely important because I’ve been to many presentations where they are to venture capitalists or to people who are not from the medical world where the doctor just had a really difficult time getting them excited because they never really grasp the potential of the technology. Richard Miles: 16:30 I’m sure. You’ve probably been to some of these pitch competitions. And again, I hate to pick on doctors, but I remember seeing when it was like four doctors, it was slide after slide as if they were at a medical conference with nothing but a regression analysis and all this data up there, and you can do maybe one of those slides. Right? But after that, you got to talk, like you said, how it’s going to solve your problems where its position in the market, et cetera, et cetera, and not just more data. Right? Dr. Richard Melker: 16:51 Exactly. So if I worked with a physician who is planning or was involved in a startup company, the first thing I did is took their slide deck and turn the 60 slides into five slides. And I said, you have got five minutes. Richard Miles: 17:05 And I’m sure they argued that every one of those 60 slides was absolutely essential . Right? Dr. Richard Melker: 17:09 Exactly. But the elevator pitch, can I sink the hook into somebody, get them interested later on, there will be people who may be interested in 30 of the 60 slides. And a lot of it has to do with when they see how excited you are, how invested you are in the technology, but you have to remember they’re business people. They want to know how they’re going to make money. And I think shark tank is a perfect example for most people when you look at them and it’s a yes or a no, particularly, Kevin O’Leary who says, how am I going to make money? And that’s what the real world of capitalism is about. Richard Miles: 17:48 And I remember, I got a really Interesting insight from a VC. I think we were both judges in the competition and he said, look, our company’s going to do due diligence, et cetera, but when I hear pitch, I assume that the technology you described to me works as you describe it. Now tell me how it’s going to make me rich. Right? But instead, the doctors sort of like working through a geometry proof , if A then B being the BBC , what you would do at an academic conference, proving your idea. And they’re like, no, no, got it, idea works. Now, how are we gonna make money off it? Dr. Richard Melker: 18:13 Exactly. And I think what happens is good. VCs have their own people who will come in and analyze the potential of your technology. So you tell them what you think it’s worth. And then they decide, okay, this probably could be commercially successful. And then they’ll bring in their own experts. Although, in my experience, that’s been a two sided coin because, one of my most successful products, I took to several companies and they had scientific advisory boards and it was turned down by two of the largest medical device manufacturers in the world. And the third company, I went to had a totally different philosophy if you’d like to talk about it. And the product has been one of the most successful products I ever developed. -So you’ve seen it all? Yeah,yeah. Richard Miles: 19:00 Let me ask a little bit about you, like many of the folks on our show, you originally hail from New York city, but you grew up in Florida. I am seeing your dad started his own company, was a stockbroker. How old were you first of all, when you moved to Florida? Dr. Richard Melker: 19:11 Well, I love living in Florida obviously, and I went to the University of Florida for two years after I graduated from high school, but then I moved to New York and I didn’t initially have any idea of what I was going to do. So if I could take a quick aside, the worst question in the world for me that I get asked and medical students get asked and people get asked in every interview is what do you want to be doing in five years and ten years from now? And my answer is I don’t have the slightest idea. And I think at least for me, I just kept growing and moving off into different directions as I found things that were interesting and exciting and had potential. And so when you’re young, you may answer that question because you’re being interviewed. But I think the reality is keep an open mind. Don’t focus too early on what you want to be. Just absorb everything around you. Certainly the son of a physician may have parents who moved them in that direction or the son or daughter of a lawyer may move them in that direction. But in general, my advice is when you go to college, just absorb as much as you can. And that’s what happened to me. I didn’t like this, I didn’t like this and then one day I enrolled in a course, and then I knew what direction I would be moving in. Richard Miles: 20:32 Richard as a kid or early in your schooling, do you ever remember having these ideas that other people didn’t have? Was it sort of evidence of that future inventor there? Were you a tinkerer? Did you like working in a garage or whatever? What age did you realize that you could come up with ideas that other people couldn’t come up with? Dr. Richard Melker: 20:48 So I can’t pinpoint an age, but I can tell you why I became an inventor. And that is I would work with things, this was long before I was involved in medicine and I just said, this could be done better. And my maternal grandfather, all the time I was with him, he was always talking about the limitations of some technology limitations of some product and always saying how we could make it better. But of course he never knew how to make it better. He would tell me. And then I realized that the reason I became an inventor is that when I used existing technology, I realize that it could be improved. And I think if you hang around doctors, and that’s why we brought the engineers into the medical school, that doctors would sit there and while they were doing something, they would literally tell you how to make it better. Now they didn’t know all the steps that it would take, but I started very young, just being a malcontent with the way things were. And for some reason, I started to realize that it was possible to improve upon them and very early on, when I filed one of my first patents, I said, will I ever file another patent? Will there ever be another idea? And then you realize as you keep your notebook, you never get to get all your ideas out. And so what happens is you start picking the ones that are most likely to be successful and commercialized. And I think if you’re an inventor, you’re an inventor your whole life. You’re always have some level of discontent with what’s out there. And you think you have that ego that you can make it better. Richard Miles: 22:31 We actually have an idea of the Cade Museum, I don’t know if we’ll ever implement it, but we thought, wouldn’t it be cool to maybe have a day where we open up the museum and the park and invite people to bring basically their DIY inventions. In other words, an existing product that they have somehow modified to do something different or better or whatnot, and to see what we get, I think it’d be a lot of fun. And I think we got the idea because we were talking, I think it was a group of farmers. I think it was actually when we did something with 4H and IFAS, and they said, farmers are among the most innovative in the world because they need the sprinkler to do something differently or the hose to irrigate differently. And they do these modifications. And that is actually how a lot of agricultural technology gets developed, as the manufacturers see what the farmers have done with their products go , Oh, that’s what we need to do. And it sounds very similar in a medical field, right? Where the practitioners actually start using those existing inventions or products differently, and then you get a new product Dr. Richard Melker: 23:22 It’s virtually the same thing. So once I was at the university long enough that I had some success with patenting and commercialization of ideas, people would call me up and they were totally unrelated to medicine. And the most important thing I could tell those people is if you have intellectual property, if you have an idea that could be commercialized before you go around telling everybody about it, you have to protect it. So I would say, don’t tell me, or I would sign a confidentiality agreement, Richard Miles: 23:52 March them down to the lawyers . Right ? Dr. Richard Melker: 23:55 Well , actually I teach people to use the U.S. PTO United States Patent Trademark Office website, and do a search. And a lot of the people would come back and they say, well, somebody already patented that. And I’d say, fantastic. You are an inventor, just so happens that the first one you thought of somebody beat you to, but you’re going to be an inventor because they’ve had, that same ability to keep coming up with new ideas. When there’s 6 million patents, you go there can’t possibly be anything new out there for me to invent. And it turns out no, look at all the companies in Silicon Valley and in the Northeast, and all over the world and it never stops and that’s what you learn. So I think when we have our bring your own invention day, the Cade , whatever we call it, I think we’re going to put you in charge. Richard is giving all this advice, but this has been a fascinating conversation. Thanks very much for coming on the show. And I tell you what, once you’ve issued what you’ve issued 69 now? So once you’ve issued 150, we’ll have you back, right? That’ll probably be a couple of years from now. Right? That sounds good, and I certainly appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. This has been fun. Richard Miles: 25:01 Thank you, I’m Richard Miles. Outro: 25:04 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

“Super tasters” are people who experience more intense sensations than others. Dr. Linda Bartoshuk is a University of Florida researcher who figured out how to identify super tasters by using “cross-modality” testing. For example, subjects are asked to compare the sweetness of a soft drink to the intensity of various sounds. Linda attributes her interest in taste research to the experience of seeing her father and brother suffer from cancer, which prevented them from being able to taste or enjoy most foods. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965 my name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:37 Welcome to a bittersweet episode, also a sour and salty episode in which you will get a taste of a new method invented by a psychologist at the University of Florida. I’m Richard Miles. My guest today is Linda Bartoshuk, a researcher who discovered the concept of supertasters. Welcome to the show, Linda. Linda Bartoshuk: 0:52 Thank you. Richard Miles: 0:52 So Linda, I was going to offer you some Radio Cade coffee, but I’m suddenly afraid it will not measure up to your standards. So tell me, are people afraid when you come to their house for dinner? Do they order out all of a sudden? Is that a problem? Linda Bartoshuk: 1:05 No, I never stopped to think about that. People do want to know if I’m a super taster and I have to tell them no, I’m not only not. I’m at the opposite end of the distribution. Richard Miles: 1:15 So, so any listeners thinking of inviting Linda to dinner, you can relax and she won’t show you up. So Linda, we usually start out each show by asking the inventor, entrepreneur or researcher to explain what the what is of what we’re talking about. So why don’t you give an explanation of what is a supertaster and how did you find out that they even exist? Linda Bartoshuk: 1:35 Supertasters are people who experience more intense taste sensations than do others. That’s the simple original definition of them. Then of course, we started to learn a lot about these people and one of the first things we learned was that they have more taste buds. Not surprising, I suppose more taste buds. They experience more intense taste , but not only do they have more taste buds, because of the anatomy of the tongue and because they’re pain fibers in baskets around tastebuds , they also feel more pain in their mouth. And because the structures that hold the taste buds have touched fibers, they feel more touch. And one of the most important components of food is fat. And we perceive fat by touch. It’s viscous, thick, creamy, oily. These are all touch sensations. Richard Miles: 2:22 Do these people self identify? I mean, did you give surveys? How does somebody even know that they’re super tasted ? Like most people think the way I taste or look as normal? How do they know that they’re not normal? Linda Bartoshuk: 2:32 That’s an extremely good question because it gets to the heart of what was special about this work. How do we know if someone’s a supertaster for that matter? How do I know what you taste? If you and I try to compare a taste experience, we use ordinary language. Like I say, Hmm , this lemonade is very sweet to me. Is it very sweet to you? And it doesn’t matter what you say, we haven’t communicated a thing because you don’t know what I’m experiencing that I described as very sweet. So the first question is how can we compare sensations across people? Unless you’re a mind reader, it’s obvious. It’s impossible. So what did we do? Well, we came close. We didn’t solve the problem when it came close. Consider the following. If I can think of something that’s independent of taste and let’s start maybe with sound and I hear a sound as loud or soft and I can match that sound to a taste intensity. If the perception of loudness and the perception of taste are not related, then I can use perception of loudness as a standard and use it to compare taste . And that’s exactly what we do. Richard Miles: 3:38 Interesting. Okay, so you sort of triangulate your way into this in terms of finding these people who have these extremely intense reactions to taste . Linda Bartoshuk: 3:46 You came to my lab, I put up a set of earphones on you and I’d play you a pure tone and I’d allow you to adjust the loudness of that tone with a knob. And I’d give you something to taste and I’d say taste this. Think about how intense it is and match the intensity of the taste to the loudness of this tone. Now that’s called cross modality matching and a very, very interesting psychologist, SS Stevens at Harvard. In the 1950s and sixties designed this technique. Humans are extremely good at it. You may not think about it, but you can compare intensity across sensations, no matter what the modalities are. So we pick a modality not related to taste and we use it as a standard. So for example, if I study genetic variation in taste and we use a compound called prop, P. R. O. P., It’s very bitter if you’re a super taster. To me, I’m a non taster, I don’t taste it at all. Now that’s an extreme difference. But how would you measure lesser differences? Well, suppose I took an ordinary Pepsi. I want to know how you experienced the sweetness of Pepsi. I want you to set the sound loudness to the sweetness of a Pepsi. Now a supertaster will turn that knob up to 90 decibels, which is the loudest of train whistle. And somebody like me will turn that knob down to 80 decibels, which is the loudness of a telephone dial tone. Now we know a lot about sound. We know a lot about hearing. We know that 10 decibels is a factor of two. So we now can say that a supertaster you get it. Richard Miles: 5:20 Yea, you can quantify it. Linda Bartoshuk: 5:20 P epsi i s twice as sweet to the supertaster because to match it, they u se a sound that was twice as loud. Richard Miles: 5:26 So I’m surprised marketers haven’t caught on, this wouldn’t be great to say these are loud fries or soft asparagus. Right. Okay. So if you’re a super taster , you experienced these tastes much more intensely. Is that across the board? I mean, every time you put something in your mouth you just sort of like, Oh my God. Or is it nuanced? Even for a supertaster , Linda Bartoshuk: 5:43 It’s every time, a factor of two is average. So imagine there are some two supertasters out there to experiencing three, four times as intense taste . Now how do they know that it’s the world they live in? They think it’s ordinary, but it’s not same as the world I live in and the world I live in I think is ordinary. And what’s fascinating is to think about how many experiences out there like this. Richard Miles: 6:06 So just give me an idea of what rough percentage of the population is super tested? Linda Bartoshuk: 6:10 That’s an interesting question. In the United States, we probably have about 15% of the population are supertasters. Richard Miles: 6:17 Oh, that high. Wow . Linda Bartoshuk: 6:17 But more women than men. Richard Miles: 6:19 Interesting. Linda Bartoshuk: 6:19 And it varies by race. So as you start to go around the world and you get to non-Caucasian groups, they have more supertasters. So in fact male Caucasians are the least likely to be supertasters of anybody in the world. Richard Miles: 6:34 Interesting. Okay. So nobody has to buy me dinner. Right? So what do supertasters do with this superpower? Do you find more of them gravitating to being cooks ? Do they tend to congregate in certain professions or what would I do with this if I had it? Linda Bartoshuk: 6:49 You know, I was asked this question some years ago and I just sloughed it off and I said, nah, that couldn’t be any connection. What do you like? What you do is too complicated. Actually to my amazement, I’ve done tests in a lot of different professions and there is a connection. A wonderful group of professional cooks invited me to a conference some years ago and they let me test them. There were several hundred people there, there were too many supertasters in that room. And most of those cooks were Caucasian men. So here I am finding all these supertasters in this group and I don’t understand this. I truly do not know why cooks would tend to be supertasters. It’s gotta be more complicated than just tastes . If anything, you think that the cooks would be the non tasters who are less opinionated about hating strong taste . Cause supertasters can get very upset about some things. Richard Miles: 7:39 Because in addition to being able to enjoy something more they’d probably irritated by. Linda Bartoshuk: 7:42 Well enjoy it. It’s interesting you said that because we actually did something recently which shows a connection there that I wasn’t expecting. We are measuring, and remember I told you how exciting it was to find this cross modal match technique to find supertasters. We’re doing something similar with pleasure. So we can measure the pleasure of food in supertasters and others. And I can tell you that supertasters get more pleasure from the foods they like a lot. Richard Miles: 8:10 Interesting. So I joked earlier about marketers getting a hold of this, but there is a serious component here. Linda Bartoshuk: 8:15 Very serious . Richard Miles: 8:16 Is there, there’s gotta be, I’m assuming work being done. Maybe you’re doing it on synthetic version of the apparatus and allow supertasters to taste. Can that in some way be reduced to some sort of additive or a new GMO that would give you the same effect as if you were a supertaster ? Linda Bartoshuk: 8:31 I have no idea because most companies don’t share what they’re doing. They consider it proprietary and they’re not going to tell me what they’re doing. Even if they ask me for help, they’re not going to tell me what the results are. Richard Miles: 8:42 I see . Okay. But is it possible in theory to do this? Linda Bartoshuk: 8:46 I’m not sure. I once had a phone call from a fellow in California who owned a vineyard. I’d given a lecture in California and he wanted me to send him prop papers. These are little bitter circles of paper that have a compound on that is particularly good at picking out tasters. Supertasters non tasters. And I had demonstrated it at a lecture and apparently he was there and he wanted to test all his employees and I said, why do you want to do that? And he said, I’m going to fire any of them that aren’t supertasters. I said, I’m not sending you papers at all. And I said, that’s the wrong thing to do. What you need to do is think about how you’re going to use these different specialties. A supertaster is going to be fantastic at picking up an off flavor, but they’re going to pick up bitter that shouldn’t be there in your product. Those are the people you hire to be the specialist to go out and check. But you’re selling wine to , most people are not supertasters and you want to know how they feel about the wine you’re selling. Richard Miles: 9:40 Exactly. So I imagine back in the days of old, the supertaster would be the guy who tastes the food for the King right? Linda Bartoshuk: 9:46 Exactly. Richard Miles: 9:46 And he’s gonna know uh oh, something’s wrong with this, you know, send it back. Oh , that’s fascinating. So how did you sort of end up looking at taste it’s just somebody asks you a question, you got curious. Tell us the path from psychology to an expert on super tasting. Linda Bartoshuk: 10:00 The first time I heard a question like that I would have answered by saying, well, when I was an undergraduate, the chairman of my department of the psyche department had done his PhD on taste and when I was ready to go to graduate school, he sent me to his mentor, Carl Hoffman, Brown university and I did my PhD with him also. But the truth is I don’t think that was it at all. I think what really did this is my father got lung cancer when I was a junior in college and I remember what was the most disturbing to him was that his sister made him a canned beef. He was a farm boy and this was one of his favorite foods and he tried to eat it and it tasted metallic and it put him off and was one of the main things he talked about when he was ill and I didn’t think about that consciously. But it’s interesting that I ended up working on that problem, on taste, Phantoms , what produces them, how you can treat them. And I didn’t learn this in time to help my father, but many years later my brother developed colon cancer and he had a phantom also and I went to see him, evaluated him and I could tell him what caused it. I still couldn’t fix it. Now I’m working with a friend in Canada, Miriam Griskha, we can actually treat these phantoms. I think that experience with my dad really made this salient and made me want to work in this field. Richard Miles: 11:18 I hadn’t even thought about the medical aspect and I should have because I recall that my father-in-law, Dr. Cade , one of his inventions apart from Gatorade was a drink called go and it was a high protein milkshake and they were testing it on athletes, but some of the early consumers of that were cancer patients because they really liked the taste of it and it was the only thing that they would want to eat and keep down. And of course it was good for them because everything in milkshake. At the time, he was mostly focused on building up proteins like that and it just happened. It tastes good, but because it tastes good, it was their only. Linda Bartoshuk: 11:48 Right. Richard Miles: 11:48 Thing that they wanted to have, right. Linda, so you grew up in a small town in South Dakota and your original love I understand was astronomy correct? Linda Bartoshuk: 11:55 Yes. Richard Miles: 11:55 So tell me about some of your early influences. Uh, what was it like to grow up in South Dakota? I, what like five people that live there. Who were some of your early influences? You mentioned your father or did you have other teachers or friends or mentors? What was that like pre-professional before you became a psychologist, what was your life like? Linda Bartoshuk: 12:12 No, I remember my teachers as being absolutely wonderful, but it’s interesting. I can recount to you some anecdotes and it’s going to sound like I grew up an angry young woman. That is not true because those events didn’t make me angry at the time. They make me angry looking back on them. We had a career day in junior high and each one of us was supposed to write what we wanted to do on a three by five card. A school would get us somebody in that field and we’d interview them. So I wrote down, I wanted to be an astronomer and they had me interview a secretary and I should have begun to catch on then. And so I get the high school and I want to take physics and chemistry and trig and algebra. And my guidance counselor told me these were unrealistic choices for me and he wouldn’t approve my schedule. So I bargained with him and I agreed to take typing and bookkeeping in return for being allowed to take these other subjects. And I should tell you, I think there was one other girl in chemistry. And other than that, it was the only girl in those courses. I gotta tell you though, the typing came in handy. I’ve got to admit that. But the teachers who taught me those subjects, I think were delighted that a girl wanted to take these subjects and they treated me just like the rest of the people in the class. So I don’t have any bad memories of that at all. Richard Miles: 13:26 Did you enjoy chemistry? Did you find it difficult? Challenging? What was your reaction? Linda Bartoshuk: 13:30 It’s interesting. Richard Miles: 13:31 If it tends to be one of those classes to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you don’t like it, you’ll take the basics and you’re out right? Linda Bartoshuk: 13:36 I didn’t like it much, and yet I’m in the chemical senses and chemistry is really important. And what can I say about that? I don’t think maybe the teachers made us like it enough. I think they didn’t expect us to like it either. And that’s a mistake. And wow. If there’s one thing that kids should be helped to like it’s science and math because it’s gonna help you everywhere, right? It’s going to help you think. Richard Miles: 13:59 But then you chose to go into psychology. You went to high school in South Dakota, right? And then where did you go do your undergrad? Linda Bartoshuk: 14:04 Well, I was going to go to South Dakota school of mines and technology and that was my home state school. And my parents took me for a visit and I would have been one of three women in a class of a hundred freshmen. And I said, uh-uh , I do not want to do this. So I went to Carlton college and the thing that made it so wonderful is that my family couldn’t afford to let me stay there for four years, but they were willing to let me go and try it out. And I was walking through the reception line with the president of the university shaking the hand of every freshmen , Lawrence Gould, the great Explorer. It was very exciting and he whispered in my ear, you’ve just been awarded a merit scholarship. Ooh, wow. It paid for my school. I could stay at Karl for four years. So I was all set. They had an observatory. I was going to be an astronomer. I took the math and the science absolutely loved it. And I get to my junior year, and lo and behold, I find out that women aren’t allowed to use the big telescopes we’re considered, I guess, too fragile. Now I’m getting pissed off and my college roommate and I sat, went through the catalog and looked for any major I could switch to that would give me credit for all that math and science. Guess what? Psychology would give me credit for all that math and science. So I could spend the last two years at Carlton taking all the psych courses and catching up with that and graduate with an astronomy, math, and psych. But what happened in my first class, I took it from John Bear, wonderful teacher, and I encountered the study of the senses and I never looked back I just loved it. Wow. Richard Miles: 15:41 And so the rest is history. How did you end up at Florida? That’s a missing link. Linda Bartoshuk: 15:45 Florida. Oh boy. I might as well tell you the truth because I’ve written it. I was at Yale for 30 years and I was mad. Yale didn’t treat women well and they didn’t treat me well. I hate to think back on all of the things that happened there. Well let me give you an example. I had an appointment at the Pierce foundation, which is a research Institute affiliated with Yale. And when I got pregnant with my first child, the director, Dr. James Hardy , ex Admiral from the deep South, sorry to say, said to me, we’ll be really sorry to lose you. And I really didn’t know what he meant. And I said, I don’t understand. And he said, well of course you’re going to resign and take care of your child. And I said, no, I’m going to keep working. And he said, women like you are going to destroy Western civilization. And he made my life miserable after that. And eventually it was more than I could stand at . And I actually moved to Yale full time and left the Pierce foundation and went into a clinical department, department of surgery. Now in surgery, they do operations on people that cut the taste nerve. If they can’t help it, it’s in the way certain kind of operations in ear, nose and throat. And I could study those patients before and after. They had a nerve cut and it opened incredible vistas. Richard Miles: 17:00 Right. Linda Bartoshuk: 17:00 Why did I eventually leave Yale 20 years? I’m really getting tired of it all. I served on sexual harassment boards. I was on one committee after another. I worked very hard for these causes. My husband was a professor in physics. He’s a theoretical physicist and he loved Yale and I didn’t want to leave while he loved it, but when he retired he said, you know, I’ve had my way all this time. Let’s go where you want. Well, the university of Florida has a smell and taste center. It was set up by Barry Ache and I wanted to be a part of that. Richard Miles: 17:32 Great story. Linda, I’m sure you probably get asked to talk to students and other groups and they probably ask you or you dispense some advice. What would you share, say with an up and coming researcher or even a budding entrepreneur? Do you look back on anything and say, gosh, I wish I’d done a little more of that and a little bit less of that? Think of a 21 year old version of yourself, what would you tell yourself now that you didn’t know then. Linda Bartoshuk: 17:55 I would tell them to do what you love because when everything else settles out, the fact is you want to get up in the morning and go to work and do something you love every morning I go into work and I can’t wait to get there. And there is just nothing that can substitute for that. Richard Miles: 18:11 I agree. It’s probably the most common advice that we hear on the show. Linda Bartoshuk: 18:13 Take a lot of math too. Richard Miles: 18:17 Love what you do, but study up in the math. Yeah, I was going to mention earlier when my daughter graduated from college, very, very few people had double degrees in both math or science related field and humanities related field. Out of all the graduates, there’s either one or the other and occasionally you saw somebody like my daughter got a degree in math and in Spanish. It’s a very unusual combination and so I think it just sort of shows the breadth of your interests that you went from a love of astronomy to chemistry to psychology. So you must enjoy what you do. I imagine when you’re doing it. Linda Bartoshuk: 18:49 I do very much. Richard Miles: 18:50 Linda, thank you very much for coming on the Radio Cade. Hope to have you back at some point and find out about loud steaks or soft potatoes. Linda Bartoshuk: 18:58 Thank you. Richard Miles: 18:58 From Radio Cade, Richard Miles signing off. Outro: 19:01 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

What is it like to grow up with an inventor as a dad? Phoebe Cade Miles, co-founder of the Cade Museum and daughter of Gatorade lead inventor Robert Cade, talks with James Di Virgilio about her father, his creative spirit, and what his creative legacy has inspired. Phoebe also explains the neuroscience of creativity, and how everyone – but especially kids – can wire their brains to be more inventive in life. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. James Di Virgilio: For Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio, and today we have a very special guest. Joining us in studio is Phoebe Miles, the co-founder and board president of the Cade Museum. Phoebe, welcome to your own podcast. Phoebe Miles: 0:50Thank you, James. It’s a pleasure to be here. James Di Virgilio: 0:52 And it’s gonna be great. We have so many interesting to talk about. Let’s start with the beginning for you because this really shapes your story. You grew up obviously with what became a very famous father, but I want to hear what it was like to grow up during what a lot of was a struggle with his innovation story. It was not a rosy success story. What’s it like to grow up with an inventor as a father? especially one that was so influential. Phoebe Miles: 1:17Growing up with an inventor of as a father for me was an incredible experience, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I just always grew up, and my father had invented Gatorade at the University of Florida, or he led the team that invented a Gatorade at the University of Florida. I grew up thinking everybody had access to this creativity and this energy, and this excitement about problem-solving in my childhood memory was as if every day my dad came home and there was something exciting that happened. I’m sure it wasn’t like that in reality, but he would come home excited and motivated by problems and his ideas of how he is going to solve them. And by the time I came along, I’m the youngest of six children and a large family he had already investigated, and he had established his reputation of the University of Florida, and he had more flexibility, I think, with his time. And at that point my mom was very happy if I went with my dad to the lab or to research he was conducting at the University of Florida, track field So I was constantly surrounded by ideas and Just an excitement in a passion for science, for history, for creativity. My dad was the most creative person I’ve ever met. James Di Virgilio: 2:21Now, at this time in your life as a child, was your dad a celebrity? Were you sort of known in places you wonder? Or did you have a little anonymity? Phoebe Miles: 2:29I can’t really answer that question because I was three years old when my father invented Gatorade, and I don’t really ever remember a life when he hadn’t done that. So certainly at that point it was already a known quantity here in Gainesville. But it was many years before became a national product and then an international product that it is today. James Di Virgilio: 2:48So at that point in time, you’re just growing up like any other child with a father who does something. Phoebe Miles: 2:52Yes. James Di Virgilio: 2:53And what you see is what they do and you’re not a Phoebe Miles: 2:54My father invented things. James Di Virgilio: 2:56Correct. Phoebe Miles: 2:57And I thought everybody had a father that was like that. I found out much later that his mindset, his approach to life was actually indeed very different than what you would expect. James Di Virgilio: 3:06Yeah, that’s really hard, that you just grew up with your parents. That’s your normal. You don’t really know what it looks like. When was it that you began to realize? So my dad was a really unique thinker or problem solver or person? When did that really dawn on you? Phoebe Miles: 3:19I don’t think I actually understood the implications of how he was as a person until I was much older and raising my own children, and we were living overseas for many years. My husband is a retired foreign service officer, so we were stationed overseas. And every time I came back to the United States, two things happened. I thought the United States is an innovative country full of entrepreneurs. This innovative entrepreneurial spirit is indeed what I think is the American culture, which did not exist in many of the countries we lived. I love the countries we lived in, but they didn’t have that spirit. And then I would come to my home and realized this kind of thinking is at the epicenter of the American experience. This idea that I can create, I can invent, I can solve problems and I can take it to market. It’s this whole ecosystem of innovation that exists here in America that doesn’t exist in other places. And it circles around people like my father that are innovative thinkers James Di Virgilio: 4:17Let’s talk about your father for a second. What was his background growing up? How did he get this creative mindset that he had to solve these problems? Phoebe Miles: 4:24Okay, so my father grew up in San Antonio, Texas, to a German family. He was actually a horrible student. Like many inventors entrepreneurs I encounter, they’re not necessarily traditional learners. He was constantly getting in trouble, constantly skipping school, going fishing in the San Antonio creek. One of our cherished possessions at the Cade Museum is a letter written by one of his high school teachers saying that she could not teach class with Bobby and it anymore. If you would just pay attention, maybe he might make something of his life. My father didn’t even actually graduate from high school. He enlisted in the Navy at the tail end of World War Two on a Navy ship. He was a pharmacist, mate. He began memorizing poetry. He loved to travel, he was a musician as well. I mean, he has a child, had started musical instrument violin practice, and he became an accomplished musician. So all of those things kind of came together and when his finally came online, his mind finally came online and he on the G.I. Bill, got into college, still without a high school degree, went to the University of Texas on a dare went to medical school. Somebody said you’ll never be able to go to medical school. He goes, Oh, yeah, watch me. So he got into medical school, went to medical school and the rest is history. He was recruited to the University of Florida to develop the division of renal medicine at the brand new medical school. Back in 1960 it was a brand new Medical School. He came in to take on the graduating class of medical students who wanted to become kidney doctors. And that’s the origins of the Gatorade story. The kidney regulates sodium and water in the body. When people sweat, they lose sodium and water. There’s a connection there between the kidney and sports. So when my dad made friends with the coach and the coach asked why are my football player is going into the infirmary after practice, my dad, after just a short conversation, realized well because they’re extremely dehydrated. They’ve lost all of their sodium and they’re in beginning stages, a kidney failure. And he said it more than that. I think I know what to do to solve that problem James Di Virgilio: 6:15And quite the problem he solved. At that point in time, a lot of football players were taught not even to drink water as a baseline, right? So there was this massive problem to solve of hydration, and he went like 500 steps further, right, so ahead of the game to say, well, there’s a basic hydration problem, but there’s also an actual depletion going on here beyond just water. Phoebe Miles: 6:34 Right. Water deprivation was actually the preferred method back in the sixties, which is just crazy to think of. So coaches withheld water because they thought that that would cause cramping. They also thought it was a sign that you were a sissy and that if you’re really tough, you would just tough it out. And the tougher you were, the meaner you were in the meaner you where the better you were. So my father put an end to that. He was like, This is really dangerous. You need to replace the fluids, but you can’t replace the fluids unless you replace the sodium. And how do you do that? You have to pair it with glucose. And then through this whole complicated intestinal cellular level, the sodium is transported into the body and ushers in 300 water molecules at the same time. So he knew that from his basic research and created the first sports beverage in the nation James Di Virgilio: 7:16Which has changed sports forever. Phoebe Miles: 7:18It changed the rules of sports. What was really interesting to me, growing up, Asai came into conversations with my father. He was much prouder of the fact that he had solved the problem of dehydration worldwide, especially infant dehydration, cause that used to be the leading cause of death worldwide. And unless you had access to a hospital where you could get IV’s, it was deadly. Gatorade changed that overnight. It was an oral rehydration beverage that could quickly rehydrate a sick infant or adult. And that, in fact, is the treatment now is Pedialyte or other types of electrolyte replacement beverages. But they are, in fact, copies of Gatorade or very similar. They use the same scientific concept, but his was the first, James Di Virgilio: 7:57Which is amazing. So Now you’re in college. You’re going to study. You’ve grown up with this Father has invented this momentous world-changing thing. What are you studying? What are you thinking about? What you want to do? What were your dreams at that point? Phoebe Miles: 8:09Okay, so I went to college at the University of Washington in Seattle, and my original intention was to study medicine. I still love medicine. I adore science. I’m a science nerd. Although I did not finish my degree in chemistry, I ended up getting a double degree, one in German language and literature and one in European history. I got married in college to my high school sweetheart, Richard, who’s the co-founder of the museum. We open the museum together, and he at that point was joining the military. We lived in Germany first, and then he joined the Foreign Service. So we spent many of our adult years living overseas in different world capitals. So I was unable to finish the medical degree. That was not possible. But I did a lot of teaching. We raised three kids overseas. They went to, I think five different school systems, three different kids, and five different school systems, and I was just astonished at how different the school systems were. But more importantly how differently my Children responded to the school systems. Our son, the oldest one, he was much like my father, a very poor student. Always getting in trouble hated school, especially the British school system. My daughter loved it. Then our third was different again. It’s why it became fascinated by why they learned so differently. And I started reading a lot about neuroscience, of learning and creativity. And I quickly ascertained that my Children learn differently because they were wired differently. So that led to this interest in creativity and education. James Di Virgilio: 9:31And this would lead to where we really are today. How did the idea for the Cade Museum come about? Phoebe Miles: 9:38So my father was again very creative, had many hobbies. He was the violinist, the poet. He grew roses, but he also restored Studebaker’s, loves Studebakers. When I look back in the past, I think he loved violins and Studebakers because they are a perfect blend of art and science. Art you can drive, aren’t you can play, but with the science behind it as well. So he had originally wanted to do a museum about innovation, American innovation through the eyes of Studebakers. So was always going to be centered on this creativity, the creativity, and entrepreneurship behind Studebakers and the whole American century from 1860 to 1960. Studebaker started with the Gold Rush. They made wheelbarrows. They transitioned into horse strong wagons. They’re the only wagon company that transitioned into automobiles. And he wanted to tell that whole story. But tie it to patents during that time, who the famous inventors were, how Studebaker fit into this innovation story of America. So that was the original concept. We quickly ascertained, like mini entrepreneurial startups, that we couldn’t support that story in this market and that the true story was actually about innovation. What’s behind Violins, Studebakers and Gatorade is actually creativity. All of them are expressions of human creativity, and we realized over time that that was the true game-changer in this community to tell that story of innovation. But not just a story. Connect people to that story of innovation. Not just other people are creative, but you have the ability to be creative and how best to step into that creativity is to have practice at it meet people that are creative. Work with them, be inspired by them. Much like I was a child. I had a seat at the table of an inventor as a father, incredibly creative, stimulating conversations. How do we create an institution that does that? For every visitor that comes in? That was the challenge. That’s where we have ended up the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, giving everybody a seat at the table of invention. James Di Virgilio: 11:36Now, to your knowledge, when you embark on this journey, was there anyone else doing this? Is there another museum or place in the entire world that does something similar? Phoebe Miles: 11:45There are museums that do similar things, Technology Museums, of San Jose Technology Museum, a patent museum that talks about inventors. We differ in that at the center of our museum, is humanity, humans intersecting with science and problems create inventions. So we’re more inventor centered than technology-centered. Yes, we teach the technology in the science, but it’s always through the lens of a problem that a person, a real person, came and solved for the benefit of humanity. And we’re very much also talking about the entrepreneurial after story. You could have an invention, but without the entrepreneur, it stays an invention on a shelf. To get it out into the market, you have to have that entrepreneurial team. It’s part of the story. So, to my knowledge, were the only invention that has the whole arc, from creative idea to product to the market, in telling that with humanity at the center, James Di Virgilio: 12:42it’s interesting as you’re telling me that story. What I can’t help but think about is art. When you look at art, I was in Milan this past summer, and I got to see the Last Supper, which is painted on the wall of her church. It’s amazing it’s Divinci, but you don’t just look at the art on the wall and not know who did it. The person who did it is such a significant impact and art and any art museum you go, too. It’s the same thing. It’s the art and who did it when they did it? Why they did it. And what you’re saying is interesting, because I think a lot of the technology achievements are disassociated from who did it, why they did it, how it happened right, and the Cade under your vision is to connect all those things. Look, here’s how it happened. Here’s why they did it. And that, in a way should encourage others to say if they did that and they solved that problem what are some of the things I may be able to solve because these they’re just people solving problems is that part of the desire and motivation is to get people to think creatively. People that may not think their creative? Phoebe Miles: 13:35Absolutely. Because I believe that every person has that ability to be creative or to adopt an inventive mindset. And then what do I mean by an inventive mindset? It’s what you just explained, an inventive mindset to somebody who is not overwhelmed by problems but inspired by a challenge and to approach it in a creative manner and not to think in a zero-sum mentality or that every setback is catastrophic. That’s not the case. If you have an inventive mindset, failure is not only an option, it is the way failure is a step in the right direction because you learn from it, what not to do, and it’s a very different mindset. It’s very optimistic, not pessimistic. that’s very proactive, not reactive. It’s very community-minded because an inventor is always service-minded in creating a product that people need or want or that brings a better quality of life. So it is very other people-centered. Where is a pessimistic mindset is usually self-centered. So I think that whole mindset, it’s at the pinnacle of what it means to be human and inventive mindset. And you can have it. Whether you’re a scientist, an artist, a child, a grandparent, it really is what makes us thrive as a species humankind. James Di Virgilio: 14:44Now architecture drives a lot of inspiration. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my travels, architecture makes a huge difference in how we feel and interact with the world. The Cade Museum, perhaps his best known right now in the city of Gainesville for its stunning and very unique architecture, what was the drive behind that? Is there a deeper meaning, or was it just a cool looking building? Phoebe Miles: 15:04Well, first of all, this is the third iteration of a building so back to the point of learning through mistakes. Not that the first two were mistakes. They had their characters but they weren’t perfect. They were either overdesigned into expensive or didn’t fit into the space. So this was our third attempt. But it was perfect. It has a special meaning in the meaning is a perfect blend of art and science, which to me I often tell people the difference between a scientist and an inventor is training in the arts. If you have adopted this inventive mindset, you think like an artist, and artists develops things over time. They see hidden connections. They see patterns that other people don’t see, so inventors think much in the same way they see patterns and science that no one else has ever seen. And voila, a new invention pops out. So the architecture is based on what’s called the Fibonacci sequence, and the Fibonacci sequence is seen throughout nature, art, and also famous architecture. It’s a sequence for you add each number to the one before, 1 + 1 is 2, 2 + 1 is 3, 3 + 2 is 5 + 3 is 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, into infinity, and you see it all throughout nature, so pine cones have 8 spirals one way, 13 another, sunflowers have 21 and 34 spirals that are interlocking. DNA is a spiral that has 8×21 angstroms, it’s er 13×21. You see it in nature, these Fibonacci numbers. What’s astonishing is when you divide Fibonacci numbers, you get 1.618 which is called the golden mean or the divine proportion, and it’s a perfect proportion of beauty. Everybody knows pi. Pi is a irrational number, but it’s mostly associated with measurements and efficiency and mathematics. Fi is 1.618 that’s been associated with beauty since ancient times, So it was just us important in ancient times as pie. But this was fi. Scientists have proven, if anybody looks at something of the golden proportion, they can. A media identify that has pleasing proportions, it’s more beautiful than something that doesn’t have that proportion. So what’s more beautiful than nature? You divide Fibonacci numbers, you get 1.618 The human face has over 21 divine proportions of that proportion that we perceive this being beautiful. So the architecture we chose, we thought, were a museum for the future, not one of the past, but were built on the past. Every success of modern-day life is built on the shoulders of giants that came before us. We build on what came before, and hopefully, we make it better. So we wanted something that honored the past but looked forward, so we based it on the golden proportion of ancient architecture. But rather than a temple that square with the golden architect, we based it on a Fibonacci spiral, a nautilus shell grows on a Fibonacci spiral. So it has the same divine proportion, but with the movement of a spiral. So that’s the architecture that we have. And it has, Ah, Oculus in the very center that replicates the eye because we are a part of everything we’ve met and seen in what you take in through your experiences shapes who you will become. So that’s also part of the story. I am apart of all that I have met and that shapes who you become, so we want to be a part of this community and be a part of what shapes people to become, what they want to become, what they need to become, what they will become. James Di Virgilio: 18:19And that’s really a beautifully summed up by you there, right, starting with some architecture, moving all the way through the meaning to the end goal. When someone walks through the doors of the Cade or they encounter a program that Cade offers, that is the goal to stir up within them this desire to be creative and innovative and overcome challenges and defeat problems. And instead of looking at a setback, say, If that didn’t work, that’s just one step closer to something that will work. How will the Cade succeed in doing this? If there’s no other museum that does this, you’re truly pioneering this. How does the Cade make this happen? Phoebe Miles: 18:52Well, we have developed a proprietary curriculum that’s under development now called the Building Blocks of Invention, and the basic concept was that similar to the alphabet, which has 26 letters. But you conform billions of words with just 26 letters that if they were 32 building blocks of invention, you could combine them in any way and make billions of inventions. So we went through hundreds of inventions and isolated. What are the building blocks of those, For instance, any invention that’s based on a wave technology would be acoustics, optics, oscillations, diagnostics. There’s all have at their basis on understanding of how waves work, whether the mechanical waves or electromagnetic waves. Every invention has its portfolio of building blocks. We have tied to those, curriculum that helps explain the science of the building block. But the beauty is it’s interchangeable. So every Saturday you can come to the museum and you have a different experience. It’s not a static experience. Every Saturday there’s a different inventor or visionary or artists that you can meet, personally, interact with and see how they’re understanding applied to their invention, that scientific building block, that invention building block, how you see that intangible inventions. Then we thread that theme through the creativity lab and the fab Lab, where any visitor can actually do further hands-on experiments. Try out new things, and maybe we combined them in ways that they hadn’t thought of before. So it’s a way of having that dynamic excitement again. Back to my childhood, I was exposed to music, art, science, really incredible opportunities, but it was ongoing and changing all of the time, so we wanted to create that in this institution, but you have to have a structure. There’s a structure behind it. It’s not random. There is a structure, and that is the building blocks of invention. James Di Virgilio: 20:38Let’s talk about funding for a second because this is an interesting one. A lot of museums will exist off large grants from important families. State funding universities may support them. The Cade, most people assume, is heavily supported by the mercy of Florida financially, but that is not actually the case. The Cade is financially supported primarily through who? Phoebe Miles: 20:59The general public. We are a public foundation, and it’s been a blessing and a curse from the beginning because of the name Dr. Cade, of course, it opens doors. You can make things happen in some ways you have access that you might not have otherwise. But on the other hand, people think it’s supported primarily by the Cade family. Therefore, we don’t need to be a part of this. My dad did set aside a foundation that funds probably 1/5 of the operations now, but never enough to build the building that we had, and we realized early on that that wasn’t ever going to be possible. We were never going to have in our funding mechanism enough to build the museum. So we very early on started reaching out to people and bringing on small supporters. Supporters that would give $100 or $10 or $1000. But more importantly than the money we did partnerships. We did programs with partners and started demonstrating the model. And over time we were able to bring in over 2000 individual supporters to build the building that we have now and now we’ve blown past that, and we were able to become a public foundation, not a private family foundation. It’s really like, they say, in the radio announcements were supported by people like you, which is true, and we are grateful for every single donor because it does count towards that public status there many ways that they decide whether you’re a public foundation or private foundation. But one is the number of supporters you have that are non-family that are small donors. They don’t want any one family to control the mission and therefore you have to prove that you have support from thousands of people. James Di Virgilio: 22:28It’s a very modern story of crowdfunding. Phoebe Miles: 22:31It was like crowdfunding. I didn’t know to call it that at that time. But I am grateful that we did not have one major supporter, because then I feel we were able to develop much like a nautilus shell or a sunflower more organically and we were small, but we grew organically where we could sustain it. And it was still a beautiful project at the beginning, as it is now because it was organic and it was not one big thunder saying, This is the way it’s going to be that is not creative. If you have one person who controls the purse and the idea, creativity happens from a fertile intersection of hundreds of people really James Di Virgilio: 23:07And the freedom to be able to go where you need to get this process started officially in 2004. And here we are in 2020. And for most people, the Cade became something they were aware of within the past couple of years. So it’s an example of the organic build you talked about looking into the future. What is the vision for the Cade when someone in the year 2030 says, Oh, I’ve been to the Cade or I think of the Cade. What would you want them to associate with that experience? Phoebe Miles: 23:32What I envisioned for the future is that the Cade becomes a resource for other communities, other centers, other townships across the world that are really struggling with this problem of how do we leverage all the creative potential in our community? It’s there. We just can’t bring it together. Because if Florida could go from an export of produce to an exporter of ideas and inventions, specifically Gainesville, we can demonstrate how you bring it all together and how you can leverage what you already have to become more than the sum of your parts. And I think if we could export anything, it would be that idea that communities are transformed through a community, each person using the creative abilities, pulling in the same direction. And I think over time, by necessity, we had to expand our partnerships in that way, and it’s hugely exciting to see how we became better than the sum of our parts and better than I could have imagined because it wasn’t my idea. It was many people coming together, and we developed in a different way than I had thought but in a better way than I could have envisioned. I would love to share that inventive mindset with the curriculum to other communities. How do you pull in partners to do this? James Di Virgilio: 24:44We talked a lot indirectly about a lot of words of wisdom here that you have been sharing in your story. You work a lot with entrepreneurs. They encounter what’s going on, there is the Cade Prize every year of innovation. So much of your time is spent with inventors and entrepreneurs. What is a piece of wisdom that you would give to them that may apply to every entrepreneur or inventor, regardless of what they’re doing or what’s happening? Given your experiences. Phoebe Miles: 25:08My big advice would be to create your plan, have a plan. Have a vision, more vision than a plan. But hold the details of the plan lightly because you will encounter roadblocks, you will encounter pitfalls, and your original plan may not be flexible enough to deal with that. So hold your plan, but hold it lightly. Don’t take no for an answer, but be smart and listen to what people are saying and make adjustments. Don’t be afraid to iterate because you have to iterate. Don’t be afraid to fail because failure is truly a part of success. I look at every big success it’s using on the heels of a big disappointment, so be resilient. That’s a huge thing. The difference between success and not being successful is that ability to be resilient and to keep going forward and just keep your eyes on the vision. James Di Virgilio: 25:57Well, Phoebe, on behalf of everyone that’s interacted with you, been to the Cade, had a chance to get to know you and Richard, Thank you for doing what you’ve done. A lot of the work has been done behind the scenes. Most people have no idea what a labor of love this was. I know myself involved now in the pod and as a board member. Your vision for not only Gainesville but for innovation and humanity and creativity to intersect together is unique, and it’s encouraging and inspiring. And thank you for spending all this time doing this, right. It goes on notice, but it’s really thank you for that and thank you on this podcast for sharing all these stories. They’re certainly illuminating. Thanks for being a guest today. Phoebe Miles: 26:33Thanks so much, James. It was my pleasure. James Di Virgilio: 26:35And for Radio Cade, I’m James Di Virgilio. Outro:Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James D. Virgilio and Ellie Thom Coordinates inventor Interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.